Posted by Dhammaransi.net on July 19, 2009 at 9:51am
စာဖတ္သူ တဦးမွ အမၺပါလီအေၾကာင္း ေရးေပးဖို႔ ေတာင္းဆုိတဲ့ အတြက္ေၾကာင့္ ဓမၼမိတ္ေဆြ အန္တီ စီစီခ်ိဳသန္း ေရးသား ပို႔ေပးထားေသာ အမၺပါလီ အေၾကာင္းကုိ တင္ျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။
သမိုင္းအစဥ္မွာ၊ ႏိွုင္းမယွဥ္ေအာင္၊ လွရက္ပါတ႔၊ဲ ေ၀သာလီရဲ႕ အလွဧကရီ...အမၺပါလီေရ....။ သင္႔ရဲ႕ဘ၀ ျဖစ္စဥ္ကို ၾကားသိရတ႔ဲ အခိုက္ ၀ိပႆနာ အသာထားၿပီး၊ ကၽြန္မရင္ထဲမွာ တကယ္ကို ခံစားလိုက္ ရပါတယ္။ ခံစားမွုေတြကို ေသခ်ာဆန္းစစ္လိုက္ေတာ႔ အားက်မွုေတြ၊ သံေ၀ဂေတြ၊ ကိုယ္ခ်င္းစာ တရားေတြ အားလံုးပါ၀င္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒီခံစားမွုေတြကို သင္႔ကိုပဲတိုင္တည္ၿပီး ကၽြန္မ ေျပာပါရေစ..။
ဘုရားရွင္လက္ထက္က ႐ိွခ႔ဲတ႔ဲ ေ၀သာလီျပည္ႀကီးဟာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံနစ္က်င္႔သုံးပါတယ္။ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ႀကီးကို ႏွစ္စဥ္ က်င္းပလို႔ စီးပြါးေရး၊ လူမွုေရး၊ ႏိူင္ငံေရး အေျခအေန အားလုံးကို (၇၇၇၇) ေယာက္ေသာ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြန႔ဲ ေဆြးေႏြး ညိွႏိူင္း တိုင္ပင္ကာ ဆံုးျဖတ္ၾကတာပါ။ ဒီလႊတ္ေတာ္မွာ ေ၀သာလီ ဂဏသႏာၱ ရဲ႕အႀကီးအကဲ မဟာနာမ္မင္းႀကီး၊ သားေတာ္ ျဖစ္တ႔ဲ အာနႏၵ မင္းသား၊ အဘယရာဇာ ဆိုတဲ႔ စစ္ေသနာပတိ ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး၊ သူရဲေကာင္း စစ္သည္မ်ားန႔ဲ ေ၀ဒပညာ႐ွင္မ်ား ပါ၀င္ၾကပါတယ္။ အမၺပါလီေရ... သင္ကေတာ႔ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီးရဲ႕ ခ်စ္မ၀တ႔ဲ သမီးအလွတစ္ပါးပါ။ အာနႏၵ မင္းသားရဲ႕ညီမေတာ္ေပါ႔။ တကယ္ေတာ႔ သင္ဟာ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီးရဲ႕ သမီးရင္းတစ္ေယာက္ မဟုတ္ခ႔ဲဘူးေနာ္။ မဟာနာမ္မင္းႀကီးန႔ဲ မိသားစုတို႕ခရီးတစ္ခု သြားရာမွာ တစ္ေနရာအေရာက္ သရက္ပင္ေအာက္ ကေလးငိုသံၾကားလို႔ ျမင္းထိန္းကို သြားၾကည့္ ခိုင္းပါတယ္။ ဇနီးသည္ မီးဖြါးရင္း ဆုံးတာ မၾကာေသးတ႔ဲ မင္းႀကီးက အဲဒီ ကေလးကိုေမြးစားခ်င္စိတ္ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမ႔ဲ သူ႔မွာ အာနႏၵ ဆိုတ႔ဲ သားေတာ္တစ္ပါး ရွိၿပီး ျဖစ္လို႔ ေယာက်ာၤးေလး ျဖစ္ေနရင္ ထီးနန္းလုၾကမွာ ကိုစိုးရိမ္ပါ တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ ေယာက်ာၤးေလး ဆိုရင္ေတာ႔ မယူဘူး၊ မိန္းကေလး ျဖစ္ရင္ေတာ႔ ယူခဲ႔လို႔ ျမင္းထိန္းကိုမွာပါ တယ္။ ဒီလိုနဲ႔ သင္ဟာ မဟာနာမ္မင္းႀကီးရဲ႕ သမီးအျဖစ္ကို ေရာက္ခ့ဲတာပါ။ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီး န႔ဲ အာနႏၵ မင္းသားဟာ သင္႔ကို သမီးရင္းန႔ဲ မျခား၊ ညီမရင္းန႔ဲမျခား ခ်စ္ခဲ႔ၾကတာပါ။
ေ၀သာလီဟာ ေဘးကအိမ္နီးခ်င္း ႏိူင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ က်ဳးေက်ာ္ရန္စ မွုေတြေၾကာင္႔စစ္အၿမဲ တိုက္ေနရတ႔ဲ ႏိူင္ငံပါ။ အထူးသျဖင္႔ အေနာက္ဖက္က ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္န႔ဲဆို လူက်ဳးရင္လူသတ္၊ ေခြးက်ဳးရင္ ေခြးသတ္၊ အမိွုက္လႊင္႔သြား ရင္ေတာင္ မီး႐ွို႕ပစ္ပါတယ္။ ရန္ဖက္ ႏွစ္ႏိူင္ငံ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ ေ၀သာလီမွာ လူတိုင္းစစ္မွုထမ္းရပါတယ္။ စစ္ေရး အၿမဲေလ႔က်င္႔ ေနရပါတယ္။ ေ၀သာလီ ျပည္သူေတြဟာ အၿမဲတမ္း စည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ပါတယ္။ အမိန္႔ကို လည္း နာခံက်င္႔သံုးၾကပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ ေ၀သာလီကို ဘယ္သူမွ မထိရဲၾကပါဘူး။ အဲ...ဒါေပမ႔ဲ တစ္ခ်ိန္မွာ ေတာ႔ ဒီစည္းလုံးညီညြတ္မုွေတြ၊ အမိန္႔ ကိုနာခံတတ္မုွေတြကို ပ်က္ျပားမည့္ အေၾကာင္း ဖန္လာပါတယ္။ ဖန္တီးသူကေတာ႔ သင္ပါပဲ.. အမၺပါလီ ေရ။
သင္႔ကို ငယ္စဥ္ကစပီး သင္႔ဖခင္ မင္းႀကီးက အေ၀းမွာထားၿပီး ေယာက်ာၤးေတြ တတ္အပ္တ႔ဲ ဆင္စီး၊ ျမင္းစီး၊ ရထားေမာင္း၊ ျမွားပစ္၊ လံွပစ္၊ ဓါးခုတ္စတ႔ဲ ပညာရပ္ေတြကို သင္ယူေစခ႔ဲတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ သင္႔ကို သိသူ၊ ျမင္ဖူးသူ သိပ္မရွိခဲ႔ဘူးေနာ္၊ အသက္ ၁၃ ႏွစ္အ႐ြယ္မွာ သင္ဟာ ဒီပညာရပ္ေတြကို ကၽြမ္းက်င္လို႔ စံအိမ္ကိုျပန္ ေရာက္ခဲ႔ၿပီ၊ ပညာေတြနဲ႔ အတူ အလွေသြးေတြလဲ ေၾကြစ ျပဳခ႔ၿဲပီ။ ေ၀သာလီ ၿမိဳ႕ထဲကို သင္ျမင္းရထား ၀င္ေမာင္းရင္ ျမန္လြန္းလို႔ လူေတြက သင္႔အရိပ္ကိုပဲ ျမင္ႏိူင္ၾကတယ္။ အဲဒီ အရိပ္ ကေလးကပဲ လူအမ်ား၊ အထူးသျဖင္႔ ပုရိသ ေယာက်ာၤးတို႔ရဲ႕ စိတ္၊ အာ႐ုံ ကို ဖမ္းစားႏိူင္ခ႔ဲတယ္။ ဒီအလွပိုင္ရွင္ဟာ ဘယ္သူလဲ? သင္ ဘယ္သူလဲ ဆိုတာကို လူတိုင္းသိခ်င္ေနၾကၿပီ... အမၺပါလီေရ။ ေနာက္ဆံုးမွာ လူေတြဟာ သင္႔ကို သိလိုစိတ္ ေတြကို မထိန္းႏိူင္ၾကပဲ တစ္အိမ္ၿပီးတစ္အိမ္ သင္ဘယ္အိမ္ကို ၀င္မလဲ ဆိုၿပီး အလွည့္က်ေစာင႔္ေတာ႔တာပဲ။ ေနာက္ဆုံးမွာေတာ႔ သင္ဟာ မင္းႀကီးရဲ႕သမီးမွန္းသိလို႔ အားလုံးန႔ဲ မိတ္ဆက္ေပးခဲရၿပီေလ။ အဲဒီမွာျပႆနာစ ေတာ႔တာပဲေနာ္။ အသက္ ၁၃-၁၄ ႏွစ္အ႐ြယ္မွာေတာင္ သင္႔ရဲ႕ မ်က္လံုးေ၀ွ႔တစ္ခ်က္မွာ မင္းသားေပါင္း ၁၀၀ ေလာက္ သင္႔ေနာက္ကို ပါလာခ႔ၿဲပီ။ အသက္ ၁၆ ႏွစ္အ႐ြယ္ အလွေတြျပည့္စုံလာတ႔ဲ အခ်ိန္မွာေတာ႔ ေ၀သာလီ တစ္ႏိူင္ငံလုံး အုံ႔အုံ႔ ၾကြၾကြ ျဖစ္ရၿပီ။ အမိန္႔ကိုအၿမဲနာခံတ႔ဲ သူရဲေကာင္းစစ္သည္ေတြ အမိန္႔ကို မနာခံေတာ႔ ဘူး၊ စစ္ေရးေတြ ေလ႔မက်င္႔ၾကေတာ႔ဘူး၊ သူတို႔စိတ္ထဲမွာ ပါလီ မွ ပါလီ၊ ပါလီ ကိုေတြ႕ဖို႔၊ ျမင္ရဖို႔၊ ပါလီနဲနီးရဖို႔၊ ပါလီ႔ အသံၾကားရဖို႔သာ ႀကိဳးစားၾကေတာ႔တယ္။
သင္႔ရဲ႕အလွေတြကိုကုန္ေအာင္ ဖြဲ႕ႏိူင္သူမ႐ိွခဲေပမ႔ဲ ကၽြန္မ သိသေလာက္ေတာ႔ ေျပာပါရေစ။ သင္႔ရဲ႕ ပိတုန္းေရာင္ ဆံေကသာဟာ နက္ေမွာင္ေျဖာင္႔ရွင္း၊ အဖ်ားေကာ႔စင္းလို႔ တစ္ေခ်ာင္းခ်င္းျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ထိုဆံေကသာကို ဆံထုံးထုံးၿပီး ပန္းပန္ထားတ႔ဲ သင္ဟာ ကဗ်ာ ဆရာေတြ အတြက္ စာဖြဲ႕ခ်င္စရာျဖစ္ခဲ႔တယ္။ သင္႔ရဲ႕ ခႏၶာကိုယ္ ဟာလဲ စႏၵကူးနံ႔သာ ထုံသင္းပီး အဖိုးထိုက္ ရတနာေတြ ဆင္ျမန္းထားတ့ဲ အခါ မိန္းမခ်င္းေတာင္ ေငးရပါေပတယ္။ သင္႔ရဲ႕ခႏၶာကိုယ္ အခ်ိဳးအဆစ္၊ အဖုအထစ္ ေတြဟာလဲ ပန္းပုဆရာေတြ ဘယ္လိုထုရမွန္းမ သိပဲ၊ လက္မိုွင္ခ်ရေလာက္ေအာင္ ေျပျပစ္ပါေပတယ္။ သင္ ရဲ႕ေတာက္ပ လွပတ႔ဲ မ်က္လုံးႏွစ္လုံးဟာလဲ စိန္ေရာင္က႔ဲသို႔ တ၀င္း၀င္း၊ တလက္လက္ နဲ႕ျမင္ရသူကို ဖမ္းစားႏိူင္ပါေပတယ္။ သင္ရဲ႕ပတၱျမားေရာင္ နီတ်ာတ်ာ ႏုွတ္ခမ္းႏွစ္လႊာ၊ ျဖဴသန္႔စင္တ႔ဲ သြားေလးေတြန႔ဲ ဖန္ဆင္းလိုက္တ့ဲ အၿပံဳးတစ္ခ်က္ဟာ တစ္ဖက္သား ကို ျငင္းပယ္ႏိူင္စြမ္း ကင္းသြားေစပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ ႏွုတ္ခမ္းႏွစ္လႊာ ၾကားကေပၚထြက္လာတဲ႔ သင္႔ရဲ႕အသံဟာ ႀကိဳးၾကာေလးတြန္ လိုက္သလို၊ ေလာကႀကီးကို ရပ္ဆိုင္းသြား ေစပါတယ္။ ေရၾကည္ေသာက္ရင္ ျမင္ရမေလာက္ပင္ သင္႔ရဲ႕ လည္တိုင္ေက်ာ႔႐ွင္း၊ အသားအေရရဲ႕ေကာင္းျခင္းန႔ဲ ျပည့္စုံပါေပတယ္။ ဒါေတြက ကၽြန္မ သိသ ေလာက္ေျပာရတာပါ။ ဒီလို လွခ်က္ေတြ အျပင္ သင္ဟာမာယာေတြလဲ သံုးတတ္ခဲ႔တယ္ေနာ္။ ေယာက်ာၤး ေတြၾကားထဲမွာ ျမွားပစ္က်င္႔ျပတာ၊ ျမင္းရထားစီးၿပီး ကိုယ္လံုး ထြက္ျပတာ၊ သင္႔အိမ္ေတာ္ေရွ႕မွာ လာေစာင္႔ေနၾကတ႔ဲ ပုရိသေတြအေပၚ ပန္းႀကဲခ်တာ၊ မ်က္ႏွာတစ္ျခမ္းေလး ထုတ္ျပတာေတြန႔ဲ တစ္ႏိူင္ငံလုံးက ေယာက်ာၤးအေပါင္းကို ႐ူးသြပ္ေစခ႔ၿဲပီ။ သင္႔ အခန္းထဲမွာလည္း ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္ဖို႔ တစ္ရာ႔တစ္ပါးေသာ မင္းေတြရဲ႕႐ုပ္ပုံ၊ ပန္းခ်ီ ေတြျပည့္ေနခ႔ဲတယ္။ တစ္ပုံပီးတစ္ပုံ အခ်စ္မ၀င္ အျပစ္ျမင္ခ႔ၿဲပီး ကာမွ တစ္ခုေသာ ပုံကိုျမင္ေတာ႔ က်င္စက္န႔ဲတို႔ လိုက္သလိုသင္ခံစားရ၊ စိတ္၀င္စားခ႔ဲတယ္ေနာ္။ ဘယ္သူလဲ ဆိုေတာ႔ သင္တို႔ရဲ႕ ေ၀သာလီ ရဲ႕ရန္သူ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းပါပဲ။ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းဟာ သင္ရဲ႕ ႏွလုံးသားကို လုွပ္ရွားေစခ႔ၿဲပီေနာ္။ (ဒါဟာ ျမင္စိတ္မွာ စြဲလန္းသြားတ႔ဲ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာပါ) ရန္သူမင္းဆိုတာ သင္သိေပမ႔ဲ ခ်စ္မိ သြားခ႔ဲတယ္ေနာ္။ အဲဒီအခိ်န္ကစၿပီး ပါလီဟာ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္း(ပုံ)န႔ဲ အိပ္တယ္၊ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္း(ပုံ)နဲ႔စားတယ္။ (ကၽြန္မ တို႔ဒီေခတ္မွာလည္း သင္႔အ႐ြယ္ ကေလးမေလးေတြ နာမည္ႀကီး မင္းသားပံုေတြ နံရံမွာ ကပ္ၿပီး ဒီလိုပဲ စိတ္ကူးယဥ္ၾကပါတယ္။ အမွန္အတိုင္း၀န္ခံ ရရင္ကိုယ္ေတာင္ ငယ္ငယ္က ပါခ႔ဲေသးပါတယ္။)
သင္႔ရဲ႕အလွသတင္းဟာ ေ၀သာလီတင္မက ေဘးကရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ ကိုေတာင္ေရာက္ခဲ႔ပါေပါ႔။ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ျပည့္ရွင္ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းကလည္း သင္႔ကိုေတြ႕လို၊ ျမင္လိုစိတ္ေတြ ျပင္းျပခ့ဲၿပီီ။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ အေထာက္ေတာ္မ်ားကို အရင္ လႊတ္ပီး သင္႔ရဲ႕အလွကို စုံစမ္းခိုင္းခ႔ဲတယ္။ ဒီအေထာက္ေတာ္ေတြဟာ ပါလီ႔ ကိုေတြ႕ခ့ဲ ခဏမွာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ေတာင္ နစ္ေမ်ာသြားလဲဆိုရင္ ပါလီရဲ႕ျမားခ်က္ကိုေတာင္ ေရွာင္ဖို႔ေမ႔ပီး ေသဖို႔ျဖစ္ခ႔ဲတယ္။ ပါလီက ႏွလုံးသား ေနရာကို မျပစ္ပဲ ေခါင္းက ဦးထုပ္ကိုပဲခ်ိန္ ပစ္ခ႔ဲလို႔ သက္သာခ႔ဲတာေပါ႔။ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ ကိုျပန္ေရာက္လို႔ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းက ပါလီ ရဲ႕အလွကို ေမးတ့ဲအခါမွာေတာ႔ မိန္းမတစ္ေယာက္မွာရိွရမ့ဲ လကၡဏာအားလုံး ပါလီ မွာရွိေၾကာင္း ေလွ်ာက္တင္ပါတယ္။ မိမိတို႔ေတာင္ မင္းႀကီးမွန္းထားတ႔ဲ မင္းဘ႑ာ မို႔လို႔သာမျပစ္မွားရေၾကာင္း၊ ဇာတ္လမ္းစုံ ခင္းၿပီး ပါလာတ႔ဲ ပါလီရဲ႕ျမားေလးကို ဆက္သလိုက္ပါတယ္။ ဒီအခါမွာ ေသာတာပန္ မင္းႀကီး ႏွလံုးသားကို ထိသြားပါတယ္။ ပါလီ ရဲ႕ျမားကို ရင္ဘတ္ေပၚတင္ပီး ပါလီ ကိုစြဲလမ္းသြားပါပီ။ ပါလီကိုေတြ႕ေအာင္လုပ္မယ္။ နီးရေအာင္ႀကံမယ္။ ပါလီနဲ႔မွ မေတြ႕ရရင္ နန္းကိုလည္းစြန္႔မယ္။ သားကိုလည္းစြန္႔မယ္။ မယားကိုလည္းစြန္႔မယ္။ ပစၥည္းေတြလည္းစြန္႔မယ္။ စည္းစိမ္ေတြ အားလုံးကိုစြန္႔မယ္။ (ဒိ႒ိန႔ဲ တဏွာ တြဲ၀င္ၿပီ) ( ၀ိပႆနာန႔ဲ ေျပာရရင္ ၾကားစိတ္နဲ႔ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာ ျဖစ္သြားပါတယ္။) ဒီစြဲလမ္းမွုေတြေၾကာင္႔ ဗိမၼိသာရမင္း စတင္အေကာင္အထည္ ေဖၚေတာ႔တာပဲ၊ (ဥပါဒါန္ ပစၥယာ ကမၼဘ၀ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္)၊ ဉာဏ္ေကာင္းတ႔ဲ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းဟာ အေတာ္ဆုံး၊ အေကာင္းဆံုး ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာရွာၿပီး ႐ုပ္ေသးပညာကို ကၽြမ္းကၽြမ္းက်င္က်င္ ျဖစ္ေအာင္သင္ပါတယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ႔ တစ္လေလာက္ တပည့္ေတြနဲ႔ ဇာတ္တိုက္ရပါတယ္။ ဘုရင္လိုမဆက္ဆံဖို႔၊ သူငယ္ခ်င္းေျပာေျပာ ေျပာဖို႔ေလ႔ က်င္႔ရပါတယ္။ တစ္သက္လုံးေမာ္မၾကည့္ရဲတ႔ဲ ကိုယ္႔ရဲ႕ မင္းမွုထမ္းေတြ၊ ကိုယ္႔ကို ဘုရားထူးလာသူေတြကို တန္းတူေျပာခံရေအာင္ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာကလုပ္ေနတာ မင္းႀကီးသတိမထားမိပါဘူး။ တဏွာကေပးလိုက္တ႔ဲ သတိၱေတြန႔ဲ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္း ေ၀သာလီကို သြားပါၿပီ။
အလြန္ေခ်ာေမာခံ႔ညားတ႔ဲ မင္းႀကီးဟာ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာ အဖိုး ႀကီး အျဖစ္႐ုပ္ဖ်က္ဟန္ေဆာင္ပီး ရန္သူ႔ နယ္ေျမထဲ ကိုစြန္႔စြန္႔စားစား သြားပါတယ္။ နယ္စြန္မွတစ္ဆင္႔ တစ္ျဖည္းျဖည္း ပါလီ တို႔ရဲ႕စံအိမ္ေတာ္န႔ဲ နီးသထက္နီးေအာင္ လာခ့ဲပါတယ္။ တစ္ေန႔မွာ ပါလီ တို႔ေနရာန႔ဲ မနီးမေ၀းမွာ ႐ုပ္ေသးကပါတယ္။ ပါလီ တို႔အဖြဲ႕လည္း ႐ုပ္ေသးလာ ၾကည့္ပါတယ္။ ပါလီက႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာကို အကဲခပ္ၾကည့္ပါတယ္။ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာ ဗိမၼိသာရ မင္းကလည္း ပါလီ အေခ်ာအလွ ကိုျမင္ေတာ႔ မ်က္ႏွာမလႊဲႏိူင္ပဲ ၾကည့္ေနမိတယ္။ ႏွစ္ဦးသား မ်က္လံုးခ်င္းဆံုေတာ႔ ရင္ခုန္မိၾကပီ။ ပါလီက ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာဟာ အသက္သိပ္ မႀကီးေသးတာ ကိုသတိထားမိတယ္။ ဗိမၼိသာရမင္းမ်ား ျဖစ္ေနမလား လို႔လည္း သံသယ ၀င္မိတယ္။ ဒါန႔ဲ နန္းေတာ္ထဲကိုလာ ကဖို႔ေျပာေတာ႔ ဘုရင္ျဖစ္တဲ႔ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းဟာ ပါလီ ကိုစကားေျပာရာမွာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္မ်ိဳး န႔ဲ ေျပာေနေပမ႔ဲ ေခါင္းမက်ိဳး၊ ဇက္မက်ိဳးပဲ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ ဒါကို ပါလီက သိတယ္။ ေနာက္ဆံုး ပါလီက တာ၀န္ယူပါတယ္ ဆိုလို႔ နန္းေတာ္ထဲကို ၀င္ကဖို႔ သေဘာတူလိုက္တယ္။ နဂိုထဲက သြားခ်င္တာကို မူေနရတာပါ။ နန္းေတာ္ထဲမွာ ကေတာ႔ ေ႐ွ႕တန္းက မင္းစင္မွာၾကည့္ေနတဲ့ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီး၊ အာနႏၵ မင္းသားနဲ႔ အဘယရာဇာ တို႔ဟာ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာကိုျမင္ေတာ႔ ႐ုတ္တရက္ သန္လ်က္ဆြဲ၊ ဓားဆြဲ ျဖစ္သြားတယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ႔ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာကို ဗိမၼိသာရမင္းကိုျမင္ဖူးလား လို႔ေမးတယ္။ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာက အျပင္မွာ မျမင္ဖူးပါဘူး၊ နာမည္ေတာ႔ၾကားဖူး တယ္လို႔ ေျပာတယ္။ (မွန္ထဲမွာပဲ ကိုယ္႔ကိုကိုယ္ျမင္ႏိုင္တာ၊ အျပင္မွာ ဘယ္လိုလုပ္ပီး ကိုယ္႔ကိုကိုယ္ျမင္မလဲ? ဗိမၼိသာရမင္း ေျပာတာမွန္တာေပါ႔၊ မုသာ၀ါဒါ မေျမာက္ပါဘူး။) ဒီေတာ႔ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီးကသင္ဟာ ဗိမိၼသာ ရမင္းန႔ဲ အလြန္တူေၾကာင္းေျပာေတာ႔ ေက်းဇူးတင္ေၾကာင္း အ႐ိုအေသေပးပါတယ္။ ဘုရင္ခ်င္းတူတူမွာ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာ ေၾကာင္႔ေအာက္က်ခံၿပီး ဆက္ဆံရတာပါ။
အဲဒီည မွာကတ့ဲ ႐ုပ္ေသးဇာတ္ကလည္း အသက္ငယ္ ငယ္ မိန္းကေလးန႔ဲ အသက္ႀကီးႀကီး အဖိုးႀကီးဇာတ္လမ္း ျဖစ္ေနေတာ႔ ပါလီ ကိုႀကံစည္ေနတ႔ဲ အဘယရာဇာ အတြက္ အႀကိဳက္ေတြ႕ေနပါတယ္။ သူသာ ပါလီ ကိုယူႏိူင္ရင္၊ သူက ေ၀သာလီ စစ္တပ္ရဲ႕အႀကီးဆုးံ ရာထူးမို႔ လို႔ ေ၀သာလီ သူရဲေကာင္း စစ္သည္ေတြအၾကား ပါလီေၾကာင္႔ အခ်င္းခ်င္း ခိုက္ရန္ျဖစ္မွု၊ တိုက္ခိုက္မွု၊ သတ္ျဖတ္မွုေတြ ကိုရပ္တန္႔ႏိူင္မယ္လို႔ ယူဆေနပါတယ္။ ႐ုပ္ေသးပြဲၿပီးေတာ႔ ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာဟာ ေမာပန္းႏြမ္း နယ္ေနပါတယ္။ တစ္သက္လံုးတစ္ခါမွ ပင္ပင္ပန္းပန္း မလုပ္ဖူးေတာ႔ လက္ပန္းက်တာေပါ႔၊ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ ႐ုပ္ေသး ႐ံုထဲ ၀င္ပီး အသာေလး မိွန္းေန၊နားေန ပါတယ္။ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာ သံသယ ျဖစ္ေနတ႔ဲ ပါလီဟာ ျဖဳန္းဆို႐ုပ္ေသး႐ုံထဲ ၀င္လာၿပီး ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္း နားလာၿပီး တပ္ထားတ႔ဲ မုတ္ဆိတ္တု၊ ႏွုတ္ခမ္းေမြးတုေတြကို ဆြဲျဖဳတ္ လိုက္ပါတယ္။ နဂို႐ုပ္ ေပၚလာတဲ႔ ဗိမၼိသာရ မင္းကိုသင္ဘယ္သူလဲ? ဘာေၾကာင္႔ဒီလိုလုပ္ရတာလဲ? စသျဖင္႔ေမးပါတယ္။ အဲဒီမွာ ဗိမၼိသာရမင္းက ပါလီအလွကိုျမင္ခ်င္လြန္း၊ ေတြ႕ခ်င္လြန္းလို႔ လုပ္ရတာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းန႔ဲ သူဟာရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ျပည့္႐ွင္ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္း ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းေျပာလိုက္တ႔ဲ အခါမွာေတာ႔ မင္းခ်င္းေတြကို ေအာ္လိုက္မယ္လို႔ ခုနက ေျပာခဲ႔တ႔ဲ ပါလီ... ေအာ္ဖို႔လည္းေမ႔၊ ျပန္သြားဖို႔ လည္းေမ႔ၿပီး၊ ႏွလုံးသားထဲက တမ္းတခ႔ဲရတ႔ဲ ခ်စ္သူရဲ႕ရင္ခြင္ေအာက္၊ အသက္ေပ်ာက္သူလို ျဖစ္ခဲ႔ရပါေပါ႔လား။ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာပဲ ေ၀သာလီမွာ ပါလီနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ အခ်င္းခ်င္း သတ္ျဖတ္ပြဲေတြန႔ဲ ေသြးေခ်ာင္းစီးပြဲေတြ ျဖစ္ေနပါပီ။ စစ္သည္ေတြဟာ ဘယ္လိုမွ အမိန္႔ေပးလို႔မရေအာင္ စည္းလုံးမုွ ေတြပ်က္ျပားေနပါတယ္။
ဒီအခါမွာ စိရံေဒ၀၊ သုဒိတ စတ႔ဲ စစ္အႀကီးအကဲ ေတြက ေ၀သာလီ မပ်က္စီးဖို႔ နည္းလမ္းတစ္ခုေတာ႔ ႐ွာရေတာ႔မယ္ လို႔စဥ္းစားပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔အေရးေပၚ လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေခၚယူရေတာ႔တယ္။ ပါလီေရ… ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာခံစားရမ႔ဲ သင္႔ဖခင္ မဟာနာမ္ မင္းႀကီးရဲ႕ခံစားခ်က္ကို ကၽြန္မ ကိုယ္ခ်င္းစာမိပါရဲ႕။ ဘာလို႔လဲ ဆိုေတာ႔ ေ၀သာလီရဲ႕အေျခခံ ဥပေဒ စာအုပ္ျဖစ္တ႔ဲ ပေ၀ဏီေပါတၳက စာအုပ္၊ စာပိုက္ ၁၈ မွာ...... “ေ၀သာလီႏိူင္ငံ၏ စီးပြါးေရး၊ ႏိူင္ငံေရး၊အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ပ်က္စီးရာ ပ်က္စီးေၾကာင္းကို လုပ္ေဆာင္သူသည္ ေယာက်ာၤးတစ္ဦးျဖစ္ပါက သတ္ေစ၊ မိန္းမ တစ္ဦးျဖစ္ပါက ႏိူင္ငံပိုင္ ျပည့္တန္ဆာအျဖစ္ ေၾကျငာေစ၊ ထိုမိန္းမအား တစ္ေန႔ကို ေယာက်ာၤး ၃ ေယာက္မွ ၅ ေယာက္ထိ အခေၾကးေငြ ေပး၍ ေပ်ာ္ပါးႏိူင္၏… လို႔ ပါ႐ိွပါတယ္။ ခ်စ္တ႔ ဲ သမီးန႔ဲ ႏိုင္ငံန႔ဲ လဲရေတာ႔မယ္ေနာ္။ အဲဒီ လႊတ္ေတာ္မွာေလ တက္ေရာက္လာတ့ဲ (၇၇၇၇) ေယာက္ေသာ စစ္သည္၊ ဗိုလ္ေခ်၊ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြဟာ... အမၺပါလီကို ထုတ္ေပးပါ။ အမၺပါလီ ကိုျမင္ခ်င္တယ္။ အမၺပါလီကိုစြန္႔မလား၊ ေ၀သာလီ ကိုစြန္႔မလား ဆိုတ႔ဲ တစ္ခဲနက္ အသံနက္ေတြန႔ဲ သင္႔ဖခင္ကို တုန္လုွပ္ေစခ႔ၿဲပီ...။ တိုင္းျပည္ ေကာင္းစားေရးကို တကယ္လိုလားတ႔၊ဲ ျပည္သူေတြကိုခ်စ္တ႔ဲ သင္႔ဖခင္ဟာေလ သမီးေတာ္ အမၺပါလီကို ႏိူင္ငံပိုင္ ျပည့္တန္ဆာအျဖစ္ ေၾကျငာခ႔ဲရၿပီ။ အဲဒီမွာပဲ သင္႔ဖခင္ ရင္ကြဲနာက်လို႔ ေသြးအန္ ေသဆုံးခဲ႔ရၿပီ... အမၺပါလီ။
ကၽြန္မ တကယ္ကို ခံစားရပါတယ္... အမၺပါလီရယ္။ (ဒီအခ်ိန္က စၿပီး သင္႔ရဲ႕ႏုစဥ္ ဘ၀ကအရိယာ ပုဂိၢဳလ္ ကိုေစာ္ကားခ႔ဲတဲ႔ ကံဟာ အက်ိဳးေပးေတာ႔တာပဲ။) ေ၀သာလီ ရဲ႕တစ္ေနရာမွာ ခ်စ္ရသူန႔ဲ ေပ်ာ္႐ႊင္စြာ ေနလို႔မွ မၾကာေသး၊ အစ္ကိုေတာ္အာနႏၵ မင္းသားထံမွ ႏိူင္ငံပိုင္ ျပည့္တန္ဆာ အျဖစ္ေၾကျငာေၾကာင္း စာရခ႔ဲၿပီ။ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာ ခ်စ္သူ ဗိမၼိသာရမင္းက ရာဇျဂိဳလ္ ျပန္ၿပီး ပါလီ႔ကို မိဖုရားေျမွာက္ဖို႔ မင္းေျမာက္တန္ဆာငါးပါး ျပန္ယူေနခိ်န္ပါ။ ပါလီ ဘာလုပ္ရမလဲ? ဗိမၼိသာရမင္း ေနာက္လိုက္သြားရင္ ေ၀သာလီက ရာဇျဂိဳလ္ကို စစ္ဆင္ၿပီး တိုက္ေတာ႔မယ္။ မလိုက္ပဲ ဒီမွာေနခ႔ဲရင္လဲ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းက ရန္ဖက္မင္းပီပီ၊ ခုဆို ခ်စ္သူကိုဆြဲလို႔ စစ္ပြဲ ႏႊဲၿပီးတိုက္လိမ္႕မယ္။ ႏွစ္ခ်က္လံုးဟာ ေ၀သာလီ အထိနာမ႔ဲ နည္းေတြခ်ည္းပါပဲ။ ေနာက္ဆုံး ေ၀သာလီ ေကာင္းစားဖို႔ ပါလီ မိန္းမမာယာသုံးၿပီး ခ်စ္သူစိတ္နာေအာင္ လုပ္ရပါေတာ႔တယ္။ ေမွ်ာ္လင္႔ခ်က္ေတြန႔ဲ ျပန္ေရာက္လာတ့ဲ ခ်စ္သူ၊ ဘုရင္႔ မင္းေျမာက္တန္ဆာတို႔နဲ႔ အလြန္က်က္သေရ ႐ိွတ႔၊ဲ ေခ်ာေမာလွတ႔ဲ ခ်စ္သူ၊ ပါလီ အသက္တမွ်ခ်စ္ရတ႔ဲ ခ်စ္သူကို ပါလီ မေျပာခ်င္ဆုံးစကားေတြကို မူယာမာယာသုံးၿပီး ရင္ႏွစ္မႊာကြဲကာ ခ်စ္သူမုန္းေအာင္ ပါလီ ေျပာေနရၿပီ။ မယုံၾကည္ႏိုင္တ့ဲ မ်က္လုံးေတြနဲ႔ အမုန္းႀကီးမုန္းသြားတ႔ဲ၊ စိတ္နာသြားၿပီး ထြက္ခြါသြားတ႔ဲခ်စ္သူကို ၾကည့္ရင္း ပါလီလဲက် က်န္ရစ္ခ႔ဲပါၿပီ။
တခါ ပါလီ႔ရဲ႕ေလးစားအားကိုးစရာ အစ္ကိုေတာ္ အာနႏၵ မင္းသားကလည္း သူန႔ဲပါလီဟာ ေမာင္ႏွမရင္းေတြ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းေျပာျပၿပီး ပါလီဟာစံအိမ္ေတာ္မွာ ေနခြင္႔မ႐ွိေတာ႔ေၾကာင္း၊ ပါလီ အတြက္သက္သက္ အိမ္တစ္ေဆာင္ ေနဖို႔ေပးေၾကာင္းန႔ဲ သူကေတာ႔ အေ၀းကို ထြက္သြားေတာ႔မွာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းေတြကို ေျပာပါတယ္။ အားကိုးစရာ မက်န္ေတာ႔တ႔ဲ ပါလီဟာ အစ္ကိုေတာ္ အာနႏၵ မင္းသား ဘယ္သြားမလဲ ဆိုတာသိခ်င္ခဲ႔တယ္။ သင္႔အစ္ကိုေတာ္က သင္႔ကို သူဘယ္သြားမလဲဆိုတာ ကိုမေျပာႏိုင္ခ႔ဲေပမ႔ဲ ဘယ္သူ႔ဆီ သြားမလဲ ဆိုတာေတာ႔ ေျပာျပခဲ႔ပါတယ္။ အာနႏၵ မင္းသားက.. ငါ စစ္တိုက္ထြက္စဥ္အခါက စစ္ေျမျပင္တစ္ေနရာမွာ ေဂါတမ ဆိုတဲ႔ ပုဂိၢဳလ္တစ္ဦးကို ေတြ႕ရဖူးတယ္။ သူ႔ ကိုငါက ျမွားန႔ဲခ်ိန္လိုက္တာကို မေ႐ွာင္ပဲ ငါ႔ကိုၾကည့္ၿပီး “ေလာကမွာ အရာရာတိုင္းကို လက္နက္နဲ႔ေျဖရွင္းလို႔ မရဘူး၊ ခ်စ္သား” လို႔ေျပာတယ္၊ ငါ႔ဘ၀မွာ ေဂါတမ မ်က္လုံးေလာက္ ဂ႐ုဏာျပည့္တ႔ဲ မ်က္လုံးမိ်ဳးမေတြ႕ဖူးဘူး၊ သူ႔ရဲ႕အၾကည့္ေၾကာင္႔ ငါ႔လက္ထဲက ျမွားဟာလြတ္က်သြားတယ္။ အခု ငါသူ႔ဆီသြားမယ္” လို႔ေျပာသြားပါတယ္။ ပါလီ႔မွာ အားကိုးစရာ ဖခင္လဲ ေသဆုံးခ႔ဲၿပီ။ ခ်စ္ရတ႔ဲ ခ်စ္သူကလည္း စိတ္နာလို႔ ပစ္ကာထားခ႔ဲၿပီ။ ေနာက္ဆုံး အစ္ကိုေတာ္ကလည္း အေ၀းကို ထြက္သြားခ႔ဲၿပီ။ ပါလီ ဘယ္သူ႔ကို အားကိုးၿပီး ေနရေတာ႔မွာလဲ?...အိုပါလီ စိတ္ဓါတ္မက်ပါဘူး၊ ပါလီရင္မွာ ခ်စ္သူရဲ႕ေသြး၊ ကေလးေလးတစ္ေယာက္ က်န္ေသးတာပဲ။ သားေလးျဖစ္ပါေစလို႔ပါလီ ဆုေတာင္းပါတယ္။ ရင္ထဲက သားကိုအားျပဳၿပီး ပါလီ အသက္ဆက္ရွင္မယ္ေနာ္။ သား ကိုယ္၀န္ေဆာင္စဥ္ ဆယ္လလံုးမွာ သားေလးျဖစ္ေစဖို႔ ေန႔ေရာညပါ ဆုေတာင္းေနရပါတယ္။ ဘာလို႔လည္းဆိုေတာ႔ ျပည့္တန္ဆာက ေမြးလို႔သားျဖစ္ရင္ ျပစ္ရမယ္။ သမီးျဖစ္ရင္ ျပည့္တန္ဆာ ရာထူးဆက္ခံရပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ ပါလီဟာ သူ႔လိုအျဖစ္မ်ိဳး မႀကံဳေအာင္ သားဆုေတာင္းတာပါ။
သူဆုေတာင္းတ႔ဲအတိုင္းပဲ ပါလီ သားေလးကိုေမြးခ႔ဲပါတယ္။ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ျပည့္႐ွင္ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းရဲ႕သား အဇာတသတ္ မင္းသားကိုသာ လူသိမ်ားၾကတာပါ။ ပါလီန႔ဲရတ့ဲသား ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည ရဟႏၱာကိုေတာ႔ သိသူနည္းပါတယ္။ ပါလီ ဟာသူ႔ရဲ႕ လသားအ႐ြယ္ သားေလးကို ခ်စ္မ၀၊ ၾကည့္မ၀ ျဖစ္ေနတုန္းမွာပဲ အစ္ကို ေတာ္ အာနႏၵ (ရဟႏၲာျဖစ္သြားၿပီ) ေရာက္လာပါတယ္။ ပါလီ စိတ္ထဲမွာ အစ္ကိုက သူတို႔န႔ဲ အတူေနဖို႔ ျပန္လာတယ္လို႔ ထင္ေနရွာတယ္။ အားရ ၀မ္းသာန႔ဲ သားကိုျပကာ ေပ်ာ္ေန႐ွာတ႔ဲ ပါလီေရ... သင္႔ရဲ႕ေပ်ာ္႐ႊင္ျခင္းေတြ မၾကာလိုက္ဖူးေနာ္.. ခ်စ္မ၀တဲ႔ လသားေလး ရဟႏၲာ အစ္ကို ေနာက္ပါသြားခဲ႔ရျပန္ပီ။ အ႐ူးတစ္ပိုင္း ျဖစ္ကာ က်န္ခ႔ဲ တ့ဲပါလီ၊ ေယာက်ာၤးတကာနဲ႕ ေပ်ာ္ပါးေနရေပမ႔ဲ ဘယ္လိုမွ မေပ်ာ္ႏိူင္ေတာ႔ပါဘူး။ ဒီလိုနဲ႔ ၆ ႏွစ္၊ ခုႏွစ္ ႏွစ္ေလာက္ၾကာတ႔ဲ အခ်ိန္ ေတာထဲမွာ ရဟႏၱာ ေတြၾကားက ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည ေလးကိုရင္ဘ၀ ေရာက္လာပါတယ္။ သူမ်ား ကိုရင္ေတြမွာ အခ်ိန္တန္လာေတြ႕တ့ဲ အေဖ၊ အေမ၊ ေတြ႐ိွခ႔ဲ ေပမ႔ဲ သူ႔ခမ်ာ ဘယ္သူမွ လာမေတြ႕ၾကေတာ႔ ဦးႀကီးေတာ္ ကိုေမး႐ွာပါတယ္။ သားရဲ႕အေဖဟာ ဘယ္သူလဲ? သားရဲ႕အေမက ဘယ္သူလဲ? သားဆီဘာလို႔ မလာၾကတာလဲ? စသျဖင္႔ေပါ႔။ ဒီအခါ ဦးႀကီးေတာ္က အဲဒါေတြ မေမးန႔ဲ သိစရာ မလိုဘူး၊ ကိုရင္ဆိုတာ တရားအားထုတ္ဖို႔ အဓိကပဲ လို႔ဆိုၿပီး အျပတ္ေျပာဆိုလို႔ သူ႔ခမ်ာ ေနာက္ထပ္မ ေမးရဲရွာပါဘူး။
တစ္ေန႔ ေ၀သာလီရဲ႕ ဆြမ္းေလာင္းပြဲမွာ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညေလး ဆြမ္းခံၾကြပါတယ္။ အဲဒီမွာ ဆြမ္းေလာင္းေနတ့ဲ ပါလီဟာ ကိုရင္ေလးကို ေတြ႕တာန႔ဲ သားမ်ားလားဆိုပီး သံသယျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ကိုရင္ေလးရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏွာ၊ မ်က္လုံး၊ မ်က္ခုံး အားလုံးဟာ ပါလီန႔ဲ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းတို႔န႔ဲတူပါတယ္။ ကိုရင္ေလးကို အေဖဘယ္သူလဲ? အေမဘယ္သူလဲ? ဘယ္ေက်ာင္းကလဲ?... စသျဖင္႔ ေမးခြန္းေတြစံုေအာင္ ပါလီေမးမိတယ္။ ကိုရင္ေလးက သူကိုယ္တိုင္ မသိတာကိုအေမးခံရေတာ႔ စိတ္တို႐ွာတယ္။ ဒကာမႀကီး၊ သိပ္စကားမ်ားတာပဲ၊ ဆြမ္းေလာင္းမွာျဖင္႔ ေလာင္းပါ လို႔ေျပာပါေတာ႔တယ္။ တျဖည္းျဖည္း ကိုရင္ေလးန႔ဲ ပါလီ မ်က္မွန္းတန္း လာပါတယ္။ ပါလီက ကိုရင္ေလးကို ဒကာမႀကီး လို႔မေခၚပါန႔ဲ အေမ လို႔ေခၚပါလားကြယ္၊ အေမ႔မွာကိုရင္႔ အ႐ြယ္ သားေလးတစ္ေယာက္ ရိွပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမ႔ဲ ခုခ်ိန္မွာ အဲဒီသားဟာ ဘယ္ေရာက္ေနမွန္း မသိႏိူင္လို႔ပါ..လို႔ေျပာ႐ွာတယ္။ ဒါေပမ႔ဲ ကိုရင္ေလးက.. မေခၚနိူင္ပါဘူးဗ်ာ၊ ဒကာမႀကီးဟာ ဒကာမႀကီးေပါ႔.. လို႔ခပ္တင္းတင္းပဲ တံု႔ျပန္တယ္။ ဒီလိုန႔ဲ ႏွစ္ေတြၾကာလာ ေတာ႔ တစ္ေန႔မွာ ပါလီက ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည မေထရ္ကိုအိမ္မွာ ဆြမ္းစားဖိတ္ပါတယ္။ သူ႔ စိတ္ထဲမွာ ဒီမေထရ္ေလးဟာ မ႐ွိဆင္းရဲလို႔ ရဟန္းျပဳတယ္လို႔ ပုထုစဥ္ေတြးေတြးပါတယ္။ သားလိုလဲ သံေယာဇဥ္ ျဖစ္ေနေတာ႔ သပိတ္ထဲကို ဆြမ္းအစား ရတနာေတြ ေလာင္းပါတယ္။ ဒီရတနာေတြထဲက တစ္လံုးေလာက္ ေရာင္းလိုက္ရင္ေတာင္ တစ္သက္လံုး စားလို႔မကုန္ေၾကာင္း၊ ဒီလို သပိတ္တစ္လံုးနဲ႔ လိုက္ေတာင္း ေနစရာ မလိုေတာ႔ေၾကာင္းေျပာေတာ႔ အရိယာ (ရဟႏာၱ)ျဖစ္သြားၿပီ ျဖစ္တ႔ဲ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညမေထရ္ဟာ ခ်က္ခ်င္းပဲ ရတနာ ေတြကို ျပန္သြန္ထုတ္ပါတယ္။ ဓါတ္ခံျခင္းကြာသလို၊ အျမင္ခ်င္း လည္းဘယ္တူပါေတာ႔မလဲ။ ၿပီးေတာ႔ ပါလီ ကိုၾကည့္ၿပီးေျပာပါတယ္။ က်ဳပ္ရဲ႕ဆရာ ျမတ္စြာဘုရားရွင္က သဒၵါ၊ သီလ၊ ဟိရိ၊ ၾသတၱပၸ၊ သုတ၊ စာဂ၊ ပညာ ဆိုတာကို ရတနာ အစစ္လို႔ေျပာတယ္။ ခုေတြ႕ေနတ႔ဲ ရတနာေတြက အဆိပ္ေတြသာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ေျပာပါတယ္။
လက္မခံျငင္းဆန္ၿပီး ျပန္ၾကြသြားပါတယ္။ တစ္ေန႔မွာ ဦးႀကီးေတာ္ အာနႏၵက ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညကို ေခၚၿပီး တာ၀န္ေပးပါတယ္။ ခ်စ္သား.. မင္း ငါ႔ကို အႏွစ္ ႏွစ္ဆယ္တိုင္တိုင္ ေမးခဲ႔တ႔ဲ မင္းအေဖ ဘယ္သူလဲ? မင္းအေမ ဘယ္သူလဲ? ဘယ္တိုင္းျပည္မွာေမြးလဲ? ဆိုတ႔ ဲ ေမးခြန္းေတြကို ငါေျဖမယ္။ မင္းဟာ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ျပည့္႐ွင္ ဗိမိၼသာ ရမင္းန႔ဲ ငါ႔ႏွမ အမၺပါလီ တို႔ရဲ႕သားပဲလို႔ ေျပာလိုက္တယ္။ အရင္တုန္းက သူအလြန္တစ္ရာ သိခ်င္လွတ႔ဲ ေမးခြန္းကို အခု သူသိရၿပီ။ ဒါေပမ႔ဲ အရိယာျဖစ္သြားၿပီျဖစ္တ့ဲ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညဟာ မတုန္လုွပ္ေတာ႔ပါဘူး၊ အတိတ္က ျဖစ္ခ႔ဲၿပီးေသာ ဓမၼာ႐ုံ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာ တို႔ကို မျပန္ေတာ႔၊ အနာဂတ္မွာ မျဖစ္ေသးတ႔ဲ ဓမၼာ႐ုံ ဥပါဒါ နကၡႏၶာ တို႔ကိုလည္း မေတာင္႔တေတာ႔၊ သူ႔စိတ္ေတြဟာ ဘာအတြက္နဲမွ် မလုွပ္ရွားေတာ႔။ ဦးႀကီးေတာ္က ဆက္ၿပီး.. အမၺပါလီကို ဒီေန႔ေက်ာင္းေရာက္ေအာင္ ေခၚခ႔ဲရမယ္။ သူမပါပဲနဲ႔ ျပန္မလာခ႔ဲန႔ဲလို႔ မွာပါတယ္။
ဒီလိုနဲ႔ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညဟာ အမၺပါလီရဲ႕ အိမ္ရွိရာကို အသြား, လမ္းမွာ အမၺပါလီ န႔ဲေတြ႕ပါတယ္။ ၀ိမလ ေကာ႑ညက ပါလီ႔ကို အေမ လို႔ေခၚလိုက္တယ္။ သူ အလြန္ၾကားခ်င္တ႔ဲ စကားတစ္ခြန္းကို ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည ဆီက ၾကားလိုက္ရေတာ႔ နဂိုကမွ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညကို သားထင္ပီးခ်စ္တ႔ဲ ပါလီဟာ အရမ္းကို ေပ်ာ္ေတာ႔တာ ေပါ႔။ ဒါနဲ႔ တစ္ခါတည္း သားကို အိမ္ကို ဆြမ္းစားပင္႔သြားေတာ႔တာပဲ။ အိမ္ေရာက္ေတာ႔ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညက အေမ႔ကို သားစကားေျပာစရာ ႐ွိတယ္လို႔ စေျပာတယ္။ ဒီေတာ႔ ပါလီက သားကိုလည္း အေမ ေျပာစရာ႐ွိတယ္။ ဘယ္သူ စ ေျပာမလဲလို႔ သားက ေမးေတာ႔… အို…လူသူ မနီး အေ၀းႀကီးမွာေနတ႔ဲ သားက လူ႔ေလာက အေၾကာင္းဘာသိ လို႔ စေျပာမွာလဲ။ အေမ ဘဲစေျပာမယ္.. ဆိုပီး သားျဖစ္သူကို လူထြက္ဖို႔ ကစပီး လူ႔ဘ၀၊ ကာမဂုဏ္ စည္းစိမ္ ေတြခံစားဖို႔ အားရပါးရ ေျပာေတာ႔တာပဲ။ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည ေျပာဖို႔ အခြင္႔ကိုမရပဲ ျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒီေတာ႔ သတိေပးတ႔ဲ အေနန႔ဲ အေမ..အေမ႔ကို တရားေဟာဖို႔ သားလာခ႔ဲတာပါလို႔.. ၀င္ေျပာ႐ွာတယ္။ ပါလီဟာ သားစကားကိုၾကားေတာ႔ အားရပါးရ ရီေတာ႔တာပဲ။ “သားရယ္..သားလို အသက္(၂၀)အ႐ြယ္ ရဟန္းေပါက္စ ေလးမေျပာနဲ႔ဲ စ်ာန္ အဘိဉာဥ္ရလို႔ ေကာင္းကင္မွာပ်ံ ႏိူင္တ႔ဲ ရဟန္းႀကီးေတြ (ပုထုစဥ္ ရဟန္း) လူတကာကို မာယာနဲ႕ လွည့္စားေနတ႔ဲ အမၺပါလီကို ေခ်ခၽြတ္မယ္ဆိုၿပီး ျပတင္းေပါက္ကေန ၾကြလာတယ္။ အမၺပါလီကို ျမင္ၿပီးတ႔ဲ ခဏမွာေတာ႔ အမၺပါလီန႔ဲ မေနရရင္ ေသရမွာပါဆိုၿပီး ေနာက္ဆုံး အေမန႔ဲအိပ္ စ်ာန္ေလွ်ာၿပီး ေျမျပင္ကေန ျပန္သြားၾကတယ္။ ဒီေတာ႔ သားရယ္.. အေမေျပာတာ ကိုပဲနားေထာင္။” အမၺပါလီရဲ႕သ႑န္မွာ ေရွ႕ကထိုင္ေနတ႔ဲ သားရဟန္းကို ၾကည့္ၿပီး အေတြးထဲမွာ အမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳး ပုံေဖၚတ႔ဲ ဓမၼာ႐ုံ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာေတြ ဆက္တိုက္ ျဖစ္ေပၚေနပါတယ္။ ပါလီက ၀ိမလေကာ႑ညကို သပိတ္မဲႀကီး ကို အရင္ဆံုးဖယ္မယ္။ ကိုယ္စားခ်င္တ႔ဲ အရသာ မစားရပဲ သူမ်ားေပးတာသာ စားရတ႔ဲ အျဖစ္ကေန အေကာင္း ဆုံး အစားအစာေတြကို ေ႐ြးစားမယ္။ ၀ိမလ ေကာ႑ညက ေနာက္ေကာ? ပါလီက ၿပီးရင္ အေရာင္မႊဲမႊဲ သကၤန္းႀကီးကို ပစ္ပီး အေကာင္းဆံုး အ၀တ္အစား ေတြဆင္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ၿပီးရင္ ဆံပင္ေတြန႔ဲလွ ေအာင္ျပင္ၿပီး အေတာ္ဆုံး ပန္းခ်ီဆရာေခၚပီး ပန္းခ်ီဆြဲ မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ပန္းခ်ီကားကို တစ္ရာ႔တစ္ပါးေသာ မင္းသမီးေတြကို ပို႔ၿပီး အေခ်ာဆံုး မင္းသမီးကိုေ႐ြးၿပီး လက္ဆက္ေစမယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? အေမရယ္၊ သားရယ္၊ ေခၽြးမရယ္ ျမင္း႐ွစ္ေကာင္ ရထားႀကီး န႔ဲၿမိဳ႕ကို ပတ္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ၿပီးရင္ ဥယ်ာဥ္ထဲ၀င္ပီး ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ ေသာက္မယ္၊ အဆို၊ အက၊ အတီး၊ အမုွတ္ေတြ နားေထာင္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ဒါန႔ဲ မိုးခ်ဳပ္ေတာ႔ အိမ္ျပန္မယ္၊ အိပ္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? မနက္က်တစ္ခါ ၿမိဳ႕ကိုပတ္မယ္။ ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ေသာက္မယ္၊ နားေထာင္မယ္ အိမ္ျပန္မယ္၊ အိပ္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ၿမိဳ႕ကိုပတ္ မယ္။ ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ေသာက္မယ္၊ နားေထာင္မယ္။ အိမ္ျပန္မယ္၊ အိပ္မယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? အုိ..ေနာက္က်ေတာ႔ သားတို႔က ကေလးေလး တစ္ေယာက္ေမြးေပါ႔။ အဲဒီ အေမ႔ေျမးေလးကို သားတုန္းကမထိန္းလိုက္ရတာ ကို အတိုးခ်ျပီး အေမ ထိန္းမယ္။ တဏွာက အမၺပါလီကို အေကာင္းေတြခ်ည္း ဆက္ေပးေနပါတယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ကေလး တစ္ေယာက္ကေန ႏွစ္ေယာက္... ေနာက္ေကာ? ႏွစ္ေယာက္ကေန သံုးေယာက္... ေနာက္ေကာ? သံုးေယာက္ကေန ေလးေယာက္... ေနာက္ေကာ? ေနာက္ေတာ႔ အေမလဲ အသက္ႀကီးလာေတာ႔ သိပ္ၿပီး မသြားႏိူင္ေတာ႔ဘူးေပါ႔.. (ေလသံ တစ္ျဖည္းျဖည္း ေပ်ာ႔က်လာပါတယ္) ေနာက္ေကာ? အေမလဲ အိပ္ရာထဲလဲၿပီး ေ၀ဒနာ ခံရရင္ခံရမွာေပါ႔။ ေနာက္ေကာ? ေနာက္ေတာ႔ အေမလဲ သဘာ၀အတိုင္း ေသရမွာေပါ႔ သားရယ္။ ေနာက္ေကာ?...(အသံမထြက္) ေနာက္ေကာ? အေမေသၿပီးတ႔ဲ ေနာက္ေကာလို႔ သားေမးေနတယ္ေလ.. (အသံမထြက္) ပါလီ မေျဖႏိူင္ေတာ႔ပါ။ ပါလီ ေသၿပီးေနာက္ဘာေတြ ျဖစ္မလဲ ပါလီ မသိေတာ႔ပါ။ အဲဒီခ်ိန္မွာပဲ သားရဟန္းက ဆတ္ကနဲ ပါလီ႔ လက္ကိုဆြဲလို႔ မိဂဒါ၀ုန္ေတာသို႔ ထြက္ခဲ့ၿပီပဲ။
ေက်ာင္းေရာက္တာန႔ဲ အစ္ကိုေတာ္က တစ္ခါတည္းဆံခ်လို႔ ေထရီမ အျဖစ္ကို ေရာက္ခ႔ဲပါတယ္။ ၀ိမလေကာ႑ည မေထရ္ဟာ မိခင္ျဖစ္သူ အမၺပါလီကို တရားေဟာပါၿပီ။ ဟိုးအရင္ အတိတ္က ျဖစ္ခ႔ဲတ့ဲ အေၾကာင္းအရာအားလုံးကို မေၾကာင္႔ၾကဖို႔၊ မျဖစ္ေသးတ႔ဲ အနာဂတ္ကိုလည္း မေတာင္႔တဖို႔၊ အဆက္မျပတ္ ျဖစ္ပ်က္ေနတ႔ဲ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာ တို႔ကို သတိန႔ဲ ေစာင္႔ၾကည့္ဖို႔စတ႔ဲ တရားအဆုံးမွာ အမၺပါလီ ေထရီမ ရဟႏၲာ အျဖစ္သို႔ ေရာက္ခဲ႔ပါၿပီ။ ေ၀သာလီန႔ဲ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ ၾကားတစ္ေနရာမွာ အမၺပါလီ ေထရီမ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး တရားေဟာ
ေနပါတယ္။ စစ္ခင္းေနတ႔ဲ ႏွစ္ႏိူင္ငံၾကားမွာ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး တရားေဟာေနတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ေျမာက္မ်ားလွစြာေသာ ပရိသတ္ေတြၾကားမွာ တစ္ခ်ိန္က အသက္တမွ် ခ်စ္ခ႔ဲဘူးတ႔ဲ ရာဇၿဂိဳလ္ျပည့္ရွင္ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းလည္းရိွေန ပါတယ္။ ေသာတာပန္သာ ျဖစ္ေသးတ႔ဲ ဗိမိၼသာရ မင္းဟာ အမၺပါလီရဲ႕ တရားပြဲမွာ စိတ္လွုပ္႐ွားေနပါတယ္။ သူ႔ကိုျမင္ရင္ မွတ္မိေအာင္ ေရွ႕ဖက္မွာ ေနရာယူထားပါတယ္။ အမၺပါလီ ေထရီဟာ တည္ၿငိမ္စြာပဲ သူ႕ကိုယ္သူ ဥပမာေပးလို႔ ဇရာ၊ ဗ်ာဓိ၊ မရဏ တို႔ႏိွပ္စက္မုွေၾကာင္႔ ယိုယြင္းလာတ႔ဲ သူမ ရဲ႕အလွေတြကို ငယ္စဥ္ကန႔ဲ ႏိုွင္းယွဥ္လို႔ ဥပါဒါနကၡႏၶာ တို႔ရဲ႕မၿမဲမွု အနိစၥတရားကို ႏွလံုးသြင္းဆင္ျခင္ဖို႔ ေျပာေနပါတယ္။ တရားပြဲအၿပီးမွာ မေအာင္႔ႏိူင္ေတာ႔တ့ဲ ဗိမိၼသာရမင္းက အမၺပါလီကို ေမာင္ေတာ္ေလတစ္ခါက ႐ုပ္ေသးဆရာ ေယာင္ေဆာင္ၿပီး ပါလီ ဆီလာခဲ့တဲ့ေမာင္ေတာ္ကို မမွတ္မိေတာ႔ဘူးလား? လို႔ ေမးမိတယ္။ ရဟႏၱာ ျဖစ္သြားပီျဖစ္တ႔ဲ အမၺပါလီ ေထရီက “အရိယာတစ္ေယာက္ အဖို႔ လူေတြန႔ဲ ဆက္ဆံတ႔ဲအခါ သူက ႐ွင္ဘုရင္၊ သူက ဆင္းရဲသား၊ သူက ၀န္ႀကီး၊ သူက ကေခ်သည္၊ သူက သူေ႒း၊ သူက သူေတာင္းစား ဆိုတ႔ဲ အျမင္မ်ိဳး မရိွေတာ႔ပါ။ အားလံုးကို တစ္တန္းတည္းတူတူ သာျမင္ပါေတာ႔တယ္” လို႔ေျဖပါတယ္။ ဗိမၼိသာရ မင္းလည္း အမၺပါလီရဲ႕ ဉာဏ္အဆင္႔ကို ခန္႔မွန္းတတ္လို႔ ေနာက္ဆုတ္ၿပီး ျပန္ခ့ဲပါေတာ႔တယ္။
ပါလီေရ.... သင္႔ရဲ႕ဘ၀က မလွပခဲ့ေပမယ္႔ ကၽြန္မ အားအက်ဆုံး အရဟတၱမဂ္ကို သင္ရခဲပါတယ္။ ငယ္စဥ္အေတြးနဲ႔ဆို သင္႔ရဲ႕ အလွတရားေတြ ကိုလည္းကၽြန္မ အားက်မိပါရဲ႕။ ဘုရား႐ွင္ကေတာင္ သင္ေက်ာင္းေတာ္ကို လာမယ္ဆိုလို႔ အရိယာမဟုတ္ေသးတ႔ဲ သံဃာေတာ္ေတြကို သင္မလာခင္ သတိပ႒ာန္တရားကို ႀကိဳပြါးခိုင္းထားရတ႔ဲထိ သင္လွႏိူင္ရက္တယ္ေနာ္။ မိန္းမခ်င္းေတာင္ မနာလိုရေလာက္ေအာင္လွတဲ႔၊ ေယာက်ာၤးဆို အရိယာ မဟုတ္ရင္ သင္႔ေရွ႕ ျဖတ္မေလွ်ာက္ရဲေအာင္ ဆြဲေဆာင္အားႀကီးတ႔ဲ သင္႔ရဲ႕အလွဟာ လူတကာကို ပူေလာင္ေစခ႔ဲတယ္ေနာ္။ သင္ဘာလို႔ အဲဒီေလာက္ လွရတာလဲ? ဘယ္ကံက အက်ိဳးေပးလို႔လဲ? လို႔ အတိတ္ကို ျပန္ေဆာင္ေတာ႔... ဘ၀ တစ္ခုမွာ သင္ဟာ ဘိကၡဴနီမ ျဖစ္ၿပီး ဘုရားေက်ာင္းေျမေတြမွာ သန္႔႐ွင္းေရး လုပ္ခဲ႔တ့ဲ ကုသိုလ္ေၾကာင္႔ ဆိုတာေတြ႕ရတယ္။ အဲဒီ ဘ၀မွာပဲ သင္ဟာ အရိယာ ဘိကၡဴနီမ တစ္ေယာက္ တံေတြးေထြး လိုက္တာကို သန္႔ရွင္းရင္း ပါးစပ္ကလည္း “ဘယ္ ျပည့္တန္ဆာမ ေထြးသြားတာလဲ? ဆိုၿပီးေျပာလိုက္မိတယ္။ သင္ဟာအဲဒီ ဘ၀မွ ေနာက္ ဘ၀ေပါင္း မ်ားစြာမွာ ျပည့္တန္ဆာမ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ရတယ္။ အခု ေနာက္ဆုံးဘ၀ထိပါပဲ။ အရိယာကို ျပစ္မွားမိတ႔ဲ ကံထိုက္တယ္လို႔ ေခၚပါတယ္။ အရဟတၱမဂ္ကို ရတာကလည္း ဘ၀မ်ားစြာမွာ သင္ဟာ ဘိကၡဴနီမ အျဖစ္ စရဏ တရားေတြကို က်င္႔ႀကံခ႔ဲလို႔ ဒီဘ၀မွာ အားျပည့္ၿပီး နိဗၺာန္ကို မ်က္ေမွာက္ျပဳ ႏိူင္တာျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင္႔ေလ တစ္ေယာက္န႔ဲ တစ္ေယာက္ မျပစ္မွားတာ ေကာင္းတယ္။ သူမ်ားအျပစ္ကို ဆီလို အေပါက္႐ွာတတ္တဲ႔ သူေတြဟာ ပိုျပစ္မွား မိတတ္ၾကတယ္။ ကိုယ္လုပ္ႏိူင္ရင္ လုပ္လိုက္၊ မလုပ္ႏိူင္ရင္ မ်က္ႏွာလႊဲလိုက္တာ ေကာင္းတယ္။ ကုသိုလ္မရရင္ေတာင္ အကုသိုလ္ေတာ႔ မယူနဲ႔ေပါ႔။ ကိုယ္ေျပာလိုက္၊ ျပစ္မွားလိုက္တဲ႔ သူဟာ အရိယာဟုတ္၊ မဟုတ္ ဘယ္လို သိႏိူင္မွာလဲ။ အရိယာ ဆိုတာ ဆိုင္းဘုတ္ခ်ိတ္ထား တာလဲမဟုတ္။ တစ္ခါတစ္ေလ ကာယကံရွင္ေတာင္ သူ႔ကိုယ္သူ အရိယာ ျဖစ္မျဖစ္ သိခ်င္မွသိၾကတာ။ ဒါကပညာအလုပ္၊ ဉာဏ္အလုပ္မဟုတ္လား။ ဗီဇစ႐ိုက္၊ အထံုဆိုတာက ေဖ်ာက္ဖို႔ အခက္သားေနာ္။ အရွင္သာရိပုတၱရာ ကိုယ္ေတာ္ျမတ္ေတာင္ ေျမာင္းေတြ႕ေတာ႔ ခုန္မိေသးတာပဲ။ အရိယာျဖစ္ၿပီး အေျပာ ၾကမ္းတ႔ဲသူလည္း ရိွႏိူင္တယ္ေနာ္။ ဘယ္သူ႔ကိုမွ ေလွ်ာ႔မတြက္ပဲ ေလးစားတာ အေကာင္းဆံုးပဲေနာ္။
အရွင္မ အမၺပါလီေရ... သင္႔ကို ကၽြန္မ ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။ သင္သြားရာ လမ္းကိုလိုက္ဖို႔ ကၽြန္မႀကိဳးစား ေနပါ တယ္။ တစ္ခ်ိန္မွာေတာ႔ သင္႔လိုပဲ ေရာက္မွာေပါ႔ေနာ္။
ေမတၱာျဖင္႔
စီစီခ်ိဳသန္း
Posted by Dhammaransi.net on July 19, 2009 at 9:51am
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Soft Drinks for Caution !!! သတိထားသင့္သည့္ အခ်ဳိရည္
Soft Drinks for Caution !!!
သတိထားသင့္သည့္ အခ်ဳိရည္
ေနပူမွာ အပူဒဏ္ကုိ သက္သာေစျပီး၊ ရင္ကုိ လန္းဆန္း အေမာေျပ သြားေစ ႏုိင္တာ ကေတာ့ အခ်ဳိရည္ ေအးေအးေလး တစ္ခြက္ ပါဘဲ။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ အားလုံး soft drinks လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ အခ်ဳိရည္ အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိး ေသာက္ဖူး ၾကတယ္။ Pepsi, Coke, Sprite, Fantasy, Lemon Soda စသည္ျဖင့္ Brand အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိး အရသာ အဖုံုဖုံနဲ႔ လူေတြရဲ႕ အၾကိဳက္ကုိ ဆဲြေဆာင္္ ခဲ့ၾက၊ ဆဲြေဆာင္ ေနၾကဆဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
အဲဒီ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ ၾကိဳက္တဲ့ အခ်ုုဳိရည္ ေတြက က်န္းမာေရး နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ ျပႆနာ ေတြကုိ ျဖစ္ေစ ႏုိင္တယ္ ဆုိတာ ကုိေတာ့ သတိ မျပဳမိတဲ့ သူေတြ ရွိႏုိင္မယ္ လုိ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ထင္လုိ႔ ဒီပုိ႔စ္နဲ႔ ဗဟုသုတ ျဖန္႔ေ၀ လုိက္ရ ပါတယ္။
ၾကည္႔ရတာ ေတာ့ ေသာက္ခ်င္စရာ ၾကီးပါဘဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီအခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြထဲမွာ ပါတဲ့ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ ပမာဏကုိ ျပတဲ့ pH value ေတြကုိ ၾကည့္ၾကည့္ ရေအာင္ ... pH နည္းေလ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ ျပင္းေလ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ဘက္ထရီေတြထဲမွာ ထည့္တဲ့ အက္စစ္ကုိ သိၾကမယ္ လုိ႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ pH တန္ဘုိး ၁ ရွိတဲ့ အက္စစ္ျပင္း မုိ႔ မေတာ္တဆ အ၀တ္မွာ စင္သြားရင္ ခဏ ေနတာနဲ႔ စားသြား ေပါက္သြားတာ ၾကဳံဖူးတဲ့ သူေတြ ရွိမွာပါ။ အခု ျပထားတဲ့ ဇယားအရ တခ်ဳိ႕အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြဟာ ဘက္ထရီ အက္စစ္ နီးပါး ျပင္းတာ သတိထားမိ ပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ကဲ ... အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြကုိ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တုိ႔က အေၾကာေဆး သြင္းသလုိ ပုိက္နဲ႔ မသြင္းၾက ပါဘူး။ ေသာက္ၾက ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ခံတြင္းထဲမွာ ဘာျဖစ္ႏုိင္လဲ ၾကည့္ၾက ရေအာင္။
သြားေတြရဲ႕အေပၚဆုံး အလႊာမွာ Enamel လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ေၾကြလႊာနဲ႔ ကာထားျပီး၊ ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ နဲ႔ ေဖာ့စ္ဖိတ္ တုိ႔ ေပါင္းထားတဲ့ Hydroxyapatite လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ဓာတ္ေပါင္း ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ ေၾကြလႊာဟာ မာေၾကာ လွေပမယ့္ အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ကုိ မခံႏုိင္ ပါဘူး။ ဘက္တီးရီးယား ပုိးေတြက စားၾကြင္း စားက်န္ ေတြကုိ ေဖာက္လုိက္လုိ႔ ထြက္လာတဲ့ အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ေၾကာင့္ ပုိးစားေပါက္ေတြ ျဖစ္ရ တယ္။ ဒါကုိ dental caries- သြားပုိးစား ေရာဂါ လုိ႔ ေခၚပါတယ္။ သြားရဲ႕ ေၾကြလႊာ ကုိ အရည္ ေဖ်ာ္ပစ္ႏုိင္တဲ့ အက္စစ္ ျပင္းအား critical pH က ၅.၅ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီထက္ ပုိျပီး အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ျပင္းတဲ့ (pH ၅.၅ ေအာက္ ေလ်ာ့တဲ့) အရည္နဲ႔ ၾကာရွည္ ထိေတြ႕မယ္ ဆုိရင္ သြားေၾကြလႊာဟာ ၊ အ၀တ္ကုိ အက္စစ္ စားသလုိ စားခံရျပီး ျပဳန္းတီး ရပါတယ္။ ပုိးစားတာ မဟုတ္ဘဲ ျပင္ပက အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ေၾကာင့္ သြားေၾကြလႊာ စားသြားျပီး အေပါက္ေတြ ျဖစ္တာကုိ erosion - အက္စစ္ေၾကာင့္ တုိက္စားျခင္း လုိ႔ ေခၚပါတယ္။
ေဆးခန္းမွာ ဒီလုိ သြားေပါက္ ေတြနဲ႔ လာျပၾကတဲ့ သူေတြ မနည္းလွ ပါဘူး။ တခ်ဳိ႕လည္း အပူ အေအး၊ အခ်ိဳ အခ်ဥ္ ထိရင္ က်ဥ္လာမွ သိလုိ႔ လာျပၾက ပါတယ္။ မွန္ထဲမွာ ၾကည့္ၾကည့္ရင္ ပုိးစားသလုိ မဲမေနဘဲ၊ ေၾကြသြားလႊာက ေျပာင္ေခ်ာေခ်ာနဲ႔ ခ်ဳိင့္၀င္ ေနတာ ေတြ႕ႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ သိပ္ဆုိး လာရင္ ေၾကြလႊာေအာက္က dentine လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ဆင္စြယ္ ႏွစ္လႊာ အညိဳေရာင္ေပၚျပီး သြားတုိက္တ ံနဲ႔ ျခစ္ၾကည့္ရင္ က်ဥ္တာကုိ ခံစားရ ပါလိမ့္မယ္။
အခ်ဳိရည္ကုိ ပုလင္းလုိက္ ေသာက္တာ၊ ခြက္နဲ႔ တမွ်င္းမွ်င္း ေမာ့ေသာက္တာ ေတြက သြားေတြနဲ႔ အခ်ဳိရည္ ၾကာရွည္ ထိေတြ႕ေစလုိ႔ ပုိျပီး ဆုိး ပါတယ္။ Straw - ပုိက္နဲ႔ စုပ္ေသာက္ျပီး ျမန္ျမန္ မ်ဳိခ် ရင္ သြားမွာ ထိခုိက္တာ နဲနဲ သက္သာပါတယ္။ ဒီေနရာမွာ အခ်ဳိရည္လုိ႔ soft drink ေတြကုိ ဦးစားေပး ေျပာထား ေပမယ့္၊ ဒိန္ခ်ဥ္တုိ႔၊ သံပရာ ရည္တုိ႔၊ grapes fruits ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ တုိ႔ စသည္ျဖင့္ ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ ေတြဟာ လည္း pH တန္ဘုိး နိမ့္တဲ့ ထဲမွာ ပါပါတယ္။
ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ မဟုတ္တဲ့ ကုိကာကုိလာ တုိ႔လုိ ဘူးသြပ္ အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြရဲ႕ ေနာက္ထပ္ ဆုိးက်ဳိး ကေတာ့၊ သူတုိ႔မွာပါတဲ့ phosphoric acid - ေဖာ့စ္ဖုိရစ္ အက္စစ္နဲ႔ carbon dioxide - ကာဘြန္ဒုိင္ ေအာက္ဆုိဒ္ ေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီဓာတ္ေတြက အစာအိမ္ထဲ ေရာက္တဲ့အခါ အစာေျခရည္ ရဲ႕ hydrochloric acid - ဟုိက္ျဒဳိ ကလုိရစ္ အက္စစ္ အစာေျခတာ ကုိ ဟန္႔တား တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ အစာ မေၾကတာ၊ ဗုိက္ထဲမွာ ေလေတြ ျပည့္ျပီး ရင္ျပည့္ရင္ကယ္တာ ျဖစ္လာပါတယ္။ အစာေျခ လမ္းေၾကာင္းရဲ႕ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ပုိမ်ား ေစတဲ့အတြက္ အစာအိမ္၊ အူသိမ္ ေရာဂါ ရွိတဲ့ သူေတြ ပုိေရွာင္ သင့္ပါတယ္။
phosphoric acid က အရုိးေတြမွာ ရွိတဲ့ ထုံးဓာတ္ - ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ ကုိလည္း ေဖ်ာ္ထုတ္ ပါတယ္။ ၾကာရင္ အရုိးပါး အရုိးေပ်ာ့ ျဖစ္ေစျပီး၊ ေဖ်ာ္ထုတ္ လုိက္တဲ့ ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ ေတြက ေက်ာက္ကပ္မွာ စုလုိ႔ ေက်ာက္ကပ္ ေက်ာက္တည္ ေစပါတယ္။
ဒါေၾကာင့္ အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြကုိ ေလွ်ာ့ ေသာက္သင့္ပါတယ္။
ဗုိက္တာမင္ စီ ဓာတ္ ရတဲ့ အခ်ဥ္ သစ္သီး ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ ေတြကေတာ့ က်န္းမာေရး အတြက္ ေကာင္းလုိ႔ ေသာက္သင့္ ပါတယ္။ ေသာက္တဲ့ အခါ ပုိက္နဲ႔ ျမန္ျမန္စုပ္ ေသာက္သင့္ ပါတယ္။ ေသာက္ျပီးတာနဲ႔ ေရနဲ႔ ပလုတ္က်င္း ေပးသင့္ ပါတယ္။ ဂ်ပန္ မွာေတာ့ Ocha လုိ႔ေခၚတဲ့ green tea လဘက္ရည္ ေတြကုိ ဘူးသြပ္၊ ပုလင္းသြပ္ျပီး ေရာင္းတယ္။ ေနရာတကာမွာ ၀ယ္လုိ႔ ရတယ္။ ေရငတ္လည္း ေျပ၊ အိပ္ခ်င္လည္း ေျပ၊ ဥပါဒ္လည္း မျဖစ္ဘူး။
သတိထားသင့္သည့္ အခ်ဳိရည္
အဲဒီ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တုိ႔ ၾကိဳက္တဲ့ အခ်ုုဳိရည္ ေတြက က်န္းမာေရး နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ ျပႆနာ ေတြကုိ ျဖစ္ေစ ႏုိင္တယ္ ဆုိတာ ကုိေတာ့ သတိ မျပဳမိတဲ့ သူေတြ ရွိႏုိင္မယ္ လုိ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ထင္လုိ႔ ဒီပုိ႔စ္နဲ႔ ဗဟုသုတ ျဖန္႔ေ၀ လုိက္ရ ပါတယ္။
ၾကည္႔ရတာ ေတာ့ ေသာက္ခ်င္စရာ ၾကီးပါဘဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီအခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြထဲမွာ ပါတဲ့ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ ပမာဏကုိ ျပတဲ့ pH value ေတြကုိ ၾကည့္ၾကည့္ ရေအာင္ ... pH နည္းေလ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ ျပင္းေလ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
ဘက္ထရီေတြထဲမွာ ထည့္တဲ့ အက္စစ္ကုိ သိၾကမယ္ လုိ႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ pH တန္ဘုိး ၁ ရွိတဲ့ အက္စစ္ျပင္း မုိ႔ မေတာ္တဆ အ၀တ္မွာ စင္သြားရင္ ခဏ ေနတာနဲ႔ စားသြား ေပါက္သြားတာ ၾကဳံဖူးတဲ့ သူေတြ ရွိမွာပါ။ အခု ျပထားတဲ့ ဇယားအရ တခ်ဳိ႕အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြဟာ ဘက္ထရီ အက္စစ္ နီးပါး ျပင္းတာ သတိထားမိ ပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ကဲ ... အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြကုိ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တုိ႔က အေၾကာေဆး သြင္းသလုိ ပုိက္နဲ႔ မသြင္းၾက ပါဘူး။ ေသာက္ၾက ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ခံတြင္းထဲမွာ ဘာျဖစ္ႏုိင္လဲ ၾကည့္ၾက ရေအာင္။
သြားေတြရဲ႕အေပၚဆုံး အလႊာမွာ Enamel လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ေၾကြလႊာနဲ႔ ကာထားျပီး၊ ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ နဲ႔ ေဖာ့စ္ဖိတ္ တုိ႔ ေပါင္းထားတဲ့ Hydroxyapatite လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ဓာတ္ေပါင္း ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ ေၾကြလႊာဟာ မာေၾကာ လွေပမယ့္ အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ကုိ မခံႏုိင္ ပါဘူး။ ဘက္တီးရီးယား ပုိးေတြက စားၾကြင္း စားက်န္ ေတြကုိ ေဖာက္လုိက္လုိ႔ ထြက္လာတဲ့ အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ေၾကာင့္ ပုိးစားေပါက္ေတြ ျဖစ္ရ တယ္။ ဒါကုိ dental caries- သြားပုိးစား ေရာဂါ လုိ႔ ေခၚပါတယ္။ သြားရဲ႕ ေၾကြလႊာ ကုိ အရည္ ေဖ်ာ္ပစ္ႏုိင္တဲ့ အက္စစ္ ျပင္းအား critical pH က ၅.၅ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီထက္ ပုိျပီး အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ျပင္းတဲ့ (pH ၅.၅ ေအာက္ ေလ်ာ့တဲ့) အရည္နဲ႔ ၾကာရွည္ ထိေတြ႕မယ္ ဆုိရင္ သြားေၾကြလႊာဟာ ၊ အ၀တ္ကုိ အက္စစ္ စားသလုိ စားခံရျပီး ျပဳန္းတီး ရပါတယ္။ ပုိးစားတာ မဟုတ္ဘဲ ျပင္ပက အက္စစ္ ဓာတ္ေၾကာင့္ သြားေၾကြလႊာ စားသြားျပီး အေပါက္ေတြ ျဖစ္တာကုိ erosion - အက္စစ္ေၾကာင့္ တုိက္စားျခင္း လုိ႔ ေခၚပါတယ္။
ေဆးခန္းမွာ ဒီလုိ သြားေပါက္ ေတြနဲ႔ လာျပၾကတဲ့ သူေတြ မနည္းလွ ပါဘူး။ တခ်ဳိ႕လည္း အပူ အေအး၊ အခ်ိဳ အခ်ဥ္ ထိရင္ က်ဥ္လာမွ သိလုိ႔ လာျပၾက ပါတယ္။ မွန္ထဲမွာ ၾကည့္ၾကည့္ရင္ ပုိးစားသလုိ မဲမေနဘဲ၊ ေၾကြသြားလႊာက ေျပာင္ေခ်ာေခ်ာနဲ႔ ခ်ဳိင့္၀င္ ေနတာ ေတြ႕ႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ သိပ္ဆုိး လာရင္ ေၾကြလႊာေအာက္က dentine လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ဆင္စြယ္ ႏွစ္လႊာ အညိဳေရာင္ေပၚျပီး သြားတုိက္တ ံနဲ႔ ျခစ္ၾကည့္ရင္ က်ဥ္တာကုိ ခံစားရ ပါလိမ့္မယ္။
အခ်ဳိရည္ကုိ ပုလင္းလုိက္ ေသာက္တာ၊ ခြက္နဲ႔ တမွ်င္းမွ်င္း ေမာ့ေသာက္တာ ေတြက သြားေတြနဲ႔ အခ်ဳိရည္ ၾကာရွည္ ထိေတြ႕ေစလုိ႔ ပုိျပီး ဆုိး ပါတယ္။ Straw - ပုိက္နဲ႔ စုပ္ေသာက္ျပီး ျမန္ျမန္ မ်ဳိခ် ရင္ သြားမွာ ထိခုိက္တာ နဲနဲ သက္သာပါတယ္။ ဒီေနရာမွာ အခ်ဳိရည္လုိ႔ soft drink ေတြကုိ ဦးစားေပး ေျပာထား ေပမယ့္၊ ဒိန္ခ်ဥ္တုိ႔၊ သံပရာ ရည္တုိ႔၊ grapes fruits ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ တုိ႔ စသည္ျဖင့္ ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ ေတြဟာ လည္း pH တန္ဘုိး နိမ့္တဲ့ ထဲမွာ ပါပါတယ္။
ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ မဟုတ္တဲ့ ကုိကာကုိလာ တုိ႔လုိ ဘူးသြပ္ အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြရဲ႕ ေနာက္ထပ္ ဆုိးက်ဳိး ကေတာ့၊ သူတုိ႔မွာပါတဲ့ phosphoric acid - ေဖာ့စ္ဖုိရစ္ အက္စစ္နဲ႔ carbon dioxide - ကာဘြန္ဒုိင္ ေအာက္ဆုိဒ္ ေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီဓာတ္ေတြက အစာအိမ္ထဲ ေရာက္တဲ့အခါ အစာေျခရည္ ရဲ႕ hydrochloric acid - ဟုိက္ျဒဳိ ကလုိရစ္ အက္စစ္ အစာေျခတာ ကုိ ဟန္႔တား တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ အစာ မေၾကတာ၊ ဗုိက္ထဲမွာ ေလေတြ ျပည့္ျပီး ရင္ျပည့္ရင္ကယ္တာ ျဖစ္လာပါတယ္။ အစာေျခ လမ္းေၾကာင္းရဲ႕ အက္စစ္ဓာတ္ကုိ ပုိမ်ား ေစတဲ့အတြက္ အစာအိမ္၊ အူသိမ္ ေရာဂါ ရွိတဲ့ သူေတြ ပုိေရွာင္ သင့္ပါတယ္။
phosphoric acid က အရုိးေတြမွာ ရွိတဲ့ ထုံးဓာတ္ - ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ ကုိလည္း ေဖ်ာ္ထုတ္ ပါတယ္။ ၾကာရင္ အရုိးပါး အရုိးေပ်ာ့ ျဖစ္ေစျပီး၊ ေဖ်ာ္ထုတ္ လုိက္တဲ့ ကယ္လ္စီယမ္ ေတြက ေက်ာက္ကပ္မွာ စုလုိ႔ ေက်ာက္ကပ္ ေက်ာက္တည္ ေစပါတယ္။
ဒါေၾကာင့္ အခ်ဳိရည္ ေတြကုိ ေလွ်ာ့ ေသာက္သင့္ပါတယ္။
ဗုိက္တာမင္ စီ ဓာတ္ ရတဲ့ အခ်ဥ္ သစ္သီး ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ ေတြကေတာ့ က်န္းမာေရး အတြက္ ေကာင္းလုိ႔ ေသာက္သင့္ ပါတယ္။ ေသာက္တဲ့ အခါ ပုိက္နဲ႔ ျမန္ျမန္စုပ္ ေသာက္သင့္ ပါတယ္။ ေသာက္ျပီးတာနဲ႔ ေရနဲ႔ ပလုတ္က်င္း ေပးသင့္ ပါတယ္။ ဂ်ပန္ မွာေတာ့ Ocha လုိ႔ေခၚတဲ့ green tea လဘက္ရည္ ေတြကုိ ဘူးသြပ္၊ ပုလင္းသြပ္ျပီး ေရာင္းတယ္။ ေနရာတကာမွာ ၀ယ္လုိ႔ ရတယ္။ ေရငတ္လည္း ေျပ၊ အိပ္ခ်င္လည္း ေျပ၊ ဥပါဒ္လည္း မျဖစ္ဘူး။
ပါေမာကၡခ်ဳပ္ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးနဲ႔ Lotus ညီအကုိေမာင္ႏွမမ်ား
အျပည္ျပည္ဆုိင္ရာ ေထရ၀ါဒ တကၠသုိလ္ပါေမာကၡခ်ဳပ္ ဆရာေတာ္ ေဒါက္တာ အရွင္နႏၵမာလာဘိ၀ံသ
ကႏၷီေဖာင္ေဒးရွင္း ဆရာေတာ္ အရွင္တိကၡဥာဏာလကၤာရ
Dhammadownload မွ U Kyaw Lwin
Lotus Foundation ညီအကုိေမာင္ႏွမမ်ား
အျပည္ျပည္ဆုိင္ရာ ေထရ၀ါဒ တကၠသုိလ္ပါေမာကၡခ်ဳပ္ ဆရာေတာ္ ေဒါက္တာ အရွင္နႏၵမာလာဘိ၀ံသ စကၤာပူနိဳင္ငံကုိ ၾကြေရာက္လာပါတယ္၊ ဆရာေတာ္ ေရာက္လာတဲ့ သတင္းၾကားတာနဲ႔ Lotus Foundation ညီအကုိေမာင္ႏွမမ်ား ဆရာေတာ့္ေျခေတာ္ရင္းကုိ သြားေရာက္ ခဲ့ပါတယ္၊
ဆရာေတာ္ရဲ့ ဩ၀ါဒ ဆရာေတာ္ရဲ့ တန္ဖုိးမျဖတ္နိဳင္တဲ့ အၾကံအဥာဏ္ကုိ ရ ရွိခဲ့ပါတယ္၊
ေနာက္ဆုံးမွာေတာ့ ပါေမာကၡခ်ဳပ္ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးနဲ႔ စုေပါင္းဓာတ္ပုံရုိက္ျပီး ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးကုိ ဦးခ်ကန္ေတာ့ကာ ျပန္လာခဲ့ပါတယ္၊
lotus Foundation ညီအကုိေမာင္နွမမ်ားရဲ့ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္ေတြကို ေလ့လာလိုတယ္ဆုိရင္ http://www.lotusfoundationmm.org မွာေလ့လာနိဳင္ပါတယ္
ဓမၼဒါနအက်ိဳး
ဓမၼဒါနအက်ိဳး
(သဗၺဒါနံ ဓမၼဒါနံ ဇိနာတိ)
အလွဴမွန္သမွ်တြင္ တရားအလွဴသည္ အျမတ္ဆံုးျဖစ္၏
(မဟာသုတကာရီ မဃေဒ၀ လကၤာသစ္ ဆဌမပိုင္း၂၊ နိမိရာစစရိယခန္းအပိုဒ္ ၅၀၇၊ စာမ်က္ႏွာ ၄၀၆ႏွင့္ ဓမၼပဒတြင္ပါရိွသည့္ သဗၺဒါနံ ဓမၼဒါနံ ဇိနာတိ အလံုးစံုေသာဒါနတို႔တြင္ ဓမၼဒါနသာလွ်င္ အျမတ္ဆံုးဆိုသည့္အတိုင္း) စၾကာ၀ဠာ တစ္တိုက္လံုး ျဗဟၼာျပည္အထိ အျပည့္အက်ပ္ရိွေနသည့္ ဘုရားပေစၥက ဗုဒၶါ ရဟႏၱာအရွင္ျမတ္တို႔ကို တစ္ပါးလွ်င္ သကၤန္းတစ္စံုက်စီ လွဴဒါန္းျခင္းသည္ ေလးပါဒရိွေသာ ျမတ္စြာဘုရား ေဟာၾကားေတာ္မူသည့္ ဂါထာတစ္ပုဒ္ကို သင္ၾကားျပသ ျဖန္႔ျဖဴးရသည့္ ဓမၼဒါနကုသိုလ္၏ ၂၅၆ စိတ္ စိတ္လွ်င္ တစ္စိတ္ကိုမွ် မမွီႏိုင္ပါ။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ဓမၼဒါနျပဳသူမ်ားသည္ အျမတ္ဆံုး ဒါနရွင္ႀကီးမ်ားျဖစ္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။
တရားအလွဴသည္ အလွဴအားလံုးကို ေအာင္ႏုိင္၏၊ တရားအရသာသည္ အရသာအားလံုးကို ေအာင္ႏိုင္၏၊ တရား၌ ေမြ႔ေလ်ာ္ျခင္းသည္ ေမြ႔ေလ်ာ္ျခင္းအားလံုးကို ေအာင္ႏုိင္၏၊ တဏွာကုန္ရာ အရဟတၱဖိုလ္သည္ အလံုးစံုေသာဆင္းရဲကို ေအာင္ႏုိင္၏။
Monday, December 28, 2009
The Noble Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path
1. Right Understanding
To understand and accept the Four Noble Truths.
2. Right Thought
To cultivate thoughts of generosity, loving-kindness and compassion.
3. Right Speech
To refrain from lying, slander, harsh words and gossip. To cultivate truthful, peaceful, kind and meaningful speech.
4. Right Action
To abstain from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. To cultivate harmlessness, honesty and faithfulness.
5. Right Livelihood
To avoid occupations involving killing (of both humans and animals), the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants. Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided.
6. Right Effort
To apply mental discipline to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising, and to dispel unwholesome thoughts that have arisen. To develop wholesome thoughts, and to maintain those wholesome thoughts that have arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
To be aware of the body, and bodily postures and sensations. To be aware of the mind and its thoughts, emotions and feelings.
8. Right Concentration
To practice meditation to train the mind to be focused and disciplined in order to cultivate and acquire wisdom.
1. Right Understanding
To understand and accept the Four Noble Truths.
2. Right Thought
To cultivate thoughts of generosity, loving-kindness and compassion.
3. Right Speech
To refrain from lying, slander, harsh words and gossip. To cultivate truthful, peaceful, kind and meaningful speech.
4. Right Action
To abstain from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. To cultivate harmlessness, honesty and faithfulness.
5. Right Livelihood
To avoid occupations involving killing (of both humans and animals), the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants. Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided.
6. Right Effort
To apply mental discipline to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising, and to dispel unwholesome thoughts that have arisen. To develop wholesome thoughts, and to maintain those wholesome thoughts that have arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
To be aware of the body, and bodily postures and sensations. To be aware of the mind and its thoughts, emotions and feelings.
8. Right Concentration
To practice meditation to train the mind to be focused and disciplined in order to cultivate and acquire wisdom.
The Four Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths
On gaining enlightenment, the Buddha realized the Four Noble Truths.
All beings are subject to Dukkha.
Dukkha is usually translated as suffering but it actually encompasses a wide range of negative feelings including stress, dissatisfaction and physical suffering. Dukkha exists as all beings are subject to illness, separation from loved ones, not getting their desires, aging and death.
Dukkha arises from desire and craving.
All beings crave pleasant sensations, and also desire to avoid unpleasant sensations. These sensations can be physical or psychological, and dukkha arises when these desires and cravings are not met.
Dukkha can be overcome by the elimination of desire and craving.
Nibbana is the state of peace where all greed, hatred and delusion, and thereby dukkha, have been eradicated.
There is a way out of dukkha, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Dukkha can be reduced, weakened and finally eradicated and Nibbana thereby attained, by following this path as taught by the Buddha.
Buddhism is occasionally criticized as being overly pessimistic as it seems to focus on suffering rather than on happiness and joy. However, all conditions of happiness and joy are impermanent because all beings are subject to sickness, old age and death, and as a result, all beings are undeniably subject to dukkha.
Instead, Buddhism is actually realistic as the Buddha has taught us how to overcome or reduce dukkha, and how to achieve the permanent bliss of Nibbana. By following the Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha, Nibbana can be experienced even in this present lifetime.
On gaining enlightenment, the Buddha realized the Four Noble Truths.
All beings are subject to Dukkha.
Dukkha is usually translated as suffering but it actually encompasses a wide range of negative feelings including stress, dissatisfaction and physical suffering. Dukkha exists as all beings are subject to illness, separation from loved ones, not getting their desires, aging and death.
Dukkha arises from desire and craving.
All beings crave pleasant sensations, and also desire to avoid unpleasant sensations. These sensations can be physical or psychological, and dukkha arises when these desires and cravings are not met.
Dukkha can be overcome by the elimination of desire and craving.
Nibbana is the state of peace where all greed, hatred and delusion, and thereby dukkha, have been eradicated.
There is a way out of dukkha, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Dukkha can be reduced, weakened and finally eradicated and Nibbana thereby attained, by following this path as taught by the Buddha.
Buddhism is occasionally criticized as being overly pessimistic as it seems to focus on suffering rather than on happiness and joy. However, all conditions of happiness and joy are impermanent because all beings are subject to sickness, old age and death, and as a result, all beings are undeniably subject to dukkha.
Instead, Buddhism is actually realistic as the Buddha has taught us how to overcome or reduce dukkha, and how to achieve the permanent bliss of Nibbana. By following the Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha, Nibbana can be experienced even in this present lifetime.
How to Accumulate Wealth
How to Accumulate Wealth is based on the Vyagghpajja Sutta, also known as the Dighajanu Sutta. It describes the conditions that improve the welfare of lay people.
In this sutta, the Buddha was approached by a lay person called Dighajanu who asked for his advice. Dighajanu said that as an ordinary person with a wife and children, he and his family enjoy worldly pleasures such as fine clothing, fragrant scents, and expensive gold and silver jewellery. He asked the Buddha to teach him how he could ensure his continued prosperity and happiness in this life, and in his future lives too.
The Buddha then proceeded to give this discourse to Dighajanu and in doing so, used the simile of a great water tank collecting rainfall. He showed how wealth, both material and spiritual, can be similarly accumulated by anyone with the right qualities.
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1. Material Wealth and Progress
Four qualities that create material wealth and progress
Persistent effort
By whatever means one engages in to earn a living, he or she should be hardworking and not lazy. He or she should understand what needs to be done, learn how to do it properly, do it well, and also delegate work to others where appropriate.
Proper vigilance
Any wealth that has been legally and rightfully accumulated should be looked after properly. Assets should be protected from fraud or misappropriation and be well managed to avoid unnecessary taxation or improper confiscation by the state. Possessions should be well protected from being stolen or destroyed. Property should not be allowed to be squandered away by irresponsible family members.
Good company
One should associate with the right kind of friends. It does not matter whether they are young or old as long as they are virtuous, charitable and have wisdom and spirituality. In this way, he or she will be positively influenced and thus live in the right way.
Balanced livelihood
One should be aware of one’s income and expenses and live within one’s means. One should be neither extravagant nor miserly, and ensure that one’s income will be more than one’s expenses and not the other way round. Anyone who lives beyond their means will have many problems and soon go to ruin. At the other extreme, a miser who hoards his or her wealth will live an unhappy life and come to a wretched end.
Four factors leading to the loss of material wealth and progress
Debauchery and promiscuity
Frequent drinking and intoxication
Addiction to gambling
Associating with bad company
Four factors leading to the gain of material wealth and progress
Abstinence from debauchery and promiscuity
Abstinence from drinking and intoxication
Abstinence from gambling
Associating with good company
Imagine a great water tank with four inlets and four outlets. The four inlets are the four factors leading to gain, and the four outlets are the four factors leading to loss.
If the inlets are kept open and the outlets kept closed, the water supply will not decrease, even if there is no rain.
For the same great water tank, if the inlets are kept open and the outlets kept closed, if there is rain the water supply will surely increase.
Therefore, always avoid the four factors of loss, and always abide by the four factors of gain.
In this sutta, the Buddha was approached by a lay person called Dighajanu who asked for his advice. Dighajanu said that as an ordinary person with a wife and children, he and his family enjoy worldly pleasures such as fine clothing, fragrant scents, and expensive gold and silver jewellery. He asked the Buddha to teach him how he could ensure his continued prosperity and happiness in this life, and in his future lives too.
The Buddha then proceeded to give this discourse to Dighajanu and in doing so, used the simile of a great water tank collecting rainfall. He showed how wealth, both material and spiritual, can be similarly accumulated by anyone with the right qualities.
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1. Material Wealth and Progress
Four qualities that create material wealth and progress
Persistent effort
By whatever means one engages in to earn a living, he or she should be hardworking and not lazy. He or she should understand what needs to be done, learn how to do it properly, do it well, and also delegate work to others where appropriate.
Proper vigilance
Any wealth that has been legally and rightfully accumulated should be looked after properly. Assets should be protected from fraud or misappropriation and be well managed to avoid unnecessary taxation or improper confiscation by the state. Possessions should be well protected from being stolen or destroyed. Property should not be allowed to be squandered away by irresponsible family members.
Good company
One should associate with the right kind of friends. It does not matter whether they are young or old as long as they are virtuous, charitable and have wisdom and spirituality. In this way, he or she will be positively influenced and thus live in the right way.
Balanced livelihood
One should be aware of one’s income and expenses and live within one’s means. One should be neither extravagant nor miserly, and ensure that one’s income will be more than one’s expenses and not the other way round. Anyone who lives beyond their means will have many problems and soon go to ruin. At the other extreme, a miser who hoards his or her wealth will live an unhappy life and come to a wretched end.
Four factors leading to the loss of material wealth and progress
Debauchery and promiscuity
Frequent drinking and intoxication
Addiction to gambling
Associating with bad company
Four factors leading to the gain of material wealth and progress
Abstinence from debauchery and promiscuity
Abstinence from drinking and intoxication
Abstinence from gambling
Associating with good company
Imagine a great water tank with four inlets and four outlets. The four inlets are the four factors leading to gain, and the four outlets are the four factors leading to loss.
If the inlets are kept open and the outlets kept closed, the water supply will not decrease, even if there is no rain.
For the same great water tank, if the inlets are kept open and the outlets kept closed, if there is rain the water supply will surely increase.
Therefore, always avoid the four factors of loss, and always abide by the four factors of gain.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The Three Marks of Existence ( Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta )
The Three Marks of Existence
The Buddha also discovered that all existence has three characteristics.
Anicca
All things are impermanent, and everything is in the process of changing into something else. For example, we are all in the process of aging. Even the stars and galaxies are in the process of change.
Dukkha
Because all things are impermanent, existence is subject to dukkha. There will always be the craving for the pleasant, and the aversion to the unpleasant, resulting from the ever-changing nature of existence.
Anatta
There is no permanent or unchanging self. The 'self' which we are conditioned to believe exists, is comprised of nothing more than different mental and physical constituents, which are in a state of constant change because of Cause and Effect.
The Buddha also discovered that all existence has three characteristics.
Anicca
All things are impermanent, and everything is in the process of changing into something else. For example, we are all in the process of aging. Even the stars and galaxies are in the process of change.
Dukkha
Because all things are impermanent, existence is subject to dukkha. There will always be the craving for the pleasant, and the aversion to the unpleasant, resulting from the ever-changing nature of existence.
Anatta
There is no permanent or unchanging self. The 'self' which we are conditioned to believe exists, is comprised of nothing more than different mental and physical constituents, which are in a state of constant change because of Cause and Effect.
38 Highest Blessings in Life ( Mangala Sutta )
1. To avoid the company of fools
2. To associate with the wise
3. To honour those who are worthy of honour
4. To live in a suitable place
5. To have done good deeds in the past
6. To be on the right path
7. To have a good education
8. To be proficient at work
9. To follow a code of discipline
10. To practice pleasant speech
11. To support our parents
12. To take care of our spouse and children
13. To have occupations which do not cause harm
14. To be charitable
15. To practice virtuous conduct
16. To be of help to relatives and friends
17. To do social services
18. To abstain from evil
19. To have no desire for evil
20. To refrain from intoxicants
21. To be diligent in wholesome practice
22. To have reverence
23. To be humble
24. To be content
25. To be grateful
26. To hear the Dhamma at the right time
27. To have patience
28. To listen to advice
29. To associate with monks and spiritual teachers
30. To discuss and talk about the Dhamma
31. To practice self-restraint
32. To live according to the Noble Eight-Fold Path
33. To understand the Four Noble Truths
34. To attain Nibbana
35. To be unaffected by worldly conditions
36. To be free from sorrow
37. To be free from defilements
38. To have lasting peace and security
1. To avoid the company of fools
Fools are people who are unable to tell right from wrong, and as a result cause harm to others through their actions. They are not concerned with basic morality as they do not care very much about the consequences of their actions. By associating unmindfully with such people, it will be difficult to make any kind of material or spiritual progress as there is always the tendency to behave in a similar manner. Furthermore, there will be hardly any desire or motivation to do good deeds or improve oneself.
However, we must be prepared to lend assistance if it is needed and also help others to improve themselves. Thus we should not totally avoid the fools. What is important is that we remain mindful at all times and never allow ourselves to be adversely influenced by them. This blessing is right at the top of the Buddha’s list and is clearly the single most important blessing for any individual to have, because without this blessing there will be none to follow.
2. To associate with the wise
The wise are those who have acquired the wisdom to tell right from wrong and thus avoid causing harm to others. They are aware that their actions have consequences on not only their present life, but in their future lives too. They discourage wrong-doing and encourage doing good deeds. We should always try to associate with such upright and virtuous people as proper friendships are of absolute importance in our lives, no matter what stage of progress we have reached.
3. To respect those who are worthy of respect
Our parents, elders and teachers are the people we should honour and respect. We can respect them materially or through our conduct. By giving them due respect and honour, we can benefit from their guidance and continue to learn from them.
4. To live in a suitable place
A suitable place has both a material and spiritual meaning. Materially, it means a peaceful place where life and property are reasonably secure. Spiritually, it means a place and time where the teachings of the Buddha are known, and where one is able to learn and practice the teachings in peace. The blessing of living in a suitable place allows for both material and spiritual progress.
5. To have done good deeds in the past
We are continually reaping the results of our past actions. For example, if we had helped many people in the past, it is likely that when we require help ourselves, we will have the aid of some of the people whom we had previously helped. In the same way, if we continue to help others now, it is likely that in the future we will have the assistance of someone we had just helped. Thus, we must continue doing good deeds for the future. It is a twin blessing to have done good deeds in the past, and to be able to continue to do good deeds for the future.
6. To be on the right path
Most people do not even know that they are on the wrong path, much less being aware of the right path that they should take. The wrong path is that of immorality, greed and ignorance. The right path is that of virtue, generosity and wisdom. It is thus a great blessing to know the right path, and to set oneself on this path of material and spiritual progress.
7. To have a good education
This refers to both a general as well as a moral education. A good general education is essential for our material welfare and a good moral education, such as learning the Buddha’s teachings, is important for our spiritual welfare.
8. To be proficient at work
We must be able to support ourselves and our family and in order to do so, we have to be able to earn a decent living. We must have the necessary skills and qualifications and apply them properly to our work. Being able to earn a proper living, and not having to struggle to survive or resort to dishonesty or crime, is essential for both material and spiritual advancement.
9. To follow a code of discipline
Observing the Five Precepts strengthens our resolve and ability to avoid immoral and harmful actions. Following such a code of discipline will keep us from the trouble and difficulties that such negative actions eventually bring.
The Five Precepts
1. To abstain from killing any living beings.
2. To abstain from taking what is not given.
3. To abstain from sexual misconduct.
4. To abstain from lying and false speech.
5. To abstain from the abusive consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
10. To practice pleasant speech
Speech is our main form of interaction with others in society. If we were to always lie, gossip, scold or speak ill of others, we will have many enemies and people will dislike and distrust us. This will hinder greatly the material and spiritual progress we hope to achieve. We should thus always speak what is true, meaningful, pleasant and beneficial for the good of ourselves and others too.
11. To support our parents
Our parents brought us into this world and cared for us from birth. It is only the most heartless and uncaring individuals who will not help their own parents. We must show gratitude by supporting them materially and physically when it is required, and by always returning their love and care. The Buddha said that the only way we can ever fully repay our parents is to share and encourage them to practice the Dhamma.
12. To take care of our spouse and children
Although this seems obvious enough, there are people who do not fulfil this basic duty towards their families. We must support and remain faithful to our spouse, and provide for our children with material needs, parental support and a good education. This would include the crucial duty of teaching them the Dhamma for their own long-lasting peace and happiness. Taking proper care of our family means that we have a household with peace and harmony and is another important factor necessary for spiritual development.
13. To have occupations which do not cause harm
According to the Noble Eightfold Path, we should avoid occupations that involve killing, the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants. Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided. Engaging in any work which causes harm to others will never allow anyone the true peace of mind essential for spiritual development. It is thus a great blessing if we can earn a living by means which are free from unwholesome activities.
14. To be charitable
Greed, craving and excessive attachment are causes of misery and suffering. By practicing charity, we weaken these negative traits and instead cultivate compassion, generosity and selflessness. We can help others materially through our efforts or donations, or spiritually by sharing the Dhamma. Charity should be practiced without regret, discrimination or ulterior motives. Genuine kindness to others brings much love and goodwill for ourselves and also for our family. It is a great blessing to be in the fortunate position of being able to help others. And by doing so we ensure ourselves of more blessings in the future too.
15. To practice virtuous conduct
Instead of just following a code of discipline and avoiding negative actions, we can go on to a higher level of practice. A good way of doing this is to observe the positive aspects of the Five Precepts. This will lead to even greater spiritual progress.
The Five Positive Precepts
1. The practice of harmlessness and compassion.
2. The practice of kindness and generosity.
3. The practice of faithfulness and responsibility.
4. The practice of truthfulness and pleasant speech.
5. The practice of self-control and mindfulness.
16. To be of help to relatives and friends
Beyond providing for our immediate family, we should also help our relatives and friends if they are in need. As we provide assistance to one another when the need arises, we create goodwill among the people around us, and this further supports our spiritual progress.
17. To do social services
An even higher expression of generosity would be to assist the community in general. This can be done by helping to build, or making donations towards the building of schools, hospitals, shelters, roads, etc. which are of benefit to everyone. Even the planting of gardens and trees can improve our environment and the ecology of our planet. Just as important is extending our help to the needy, sick and old. If we have the inclination and the means for any kind of social services, we are indeed blessed as we have already developed much generosity and compassion.
18. To abstain from evil
Evil in the Buddhist context means any act which harms ourselves, others, or both. We should always abstain from all such negative actions.
The Ten Unwholesome Actions
The three bodily actions of :
1. Killing
2. Stealing
3. Sexual misconduct
The four verbal actions of :
4. Lying
5. Slandering
6. Harsh speech
7. Gossip
The three mental actions of :
8. Covetousness
9. Ill-will
10. Wrong view (eg. not accepting kamma and rebirth)
19. To have no desire for evil
When we have become firm in observing the Five Precepts and abstaining from the Ten Unwholesome Actions, we will find that we no longer have the desire to commit any of these harmful actions. We begin to truly realize that as we ourselves do not wish to be victims of such harmful actions, we should thus avoid doing such actions to others. It is a great blessing to naturally shy away from doing any harm to others.
20. To refrain from intoxicants
The Buddha emphasized this point in many teachings, and as one of the Five Precepts, it is the one that 'protects' the other four Precepts. He strongly advised against taking intoxicants because once we come under their influence, we become capable of committing any harmful acts that we would otherwise not have done. It would be a great waste to have come this far in our personal development only to have it all go to ruin because of drinking or drugs. Avoiding intoxicants is another great blessing.
21. To be diligent in wholesome practice
We have understood and now follow what is required for our personal development. The next step is to consolidate our practice and not let it deteriorate because of carelesness, or slip away because of complacency. We should continue to be mindful of keeping up and enhancing our wholesome practices even more. By practicing the Ten Wholesome Actions, we will then find it much easier to go on to the Higher Blessings.
The Ten Wholesome Actions
The three bodily actions of :
1. Compassion
2. Generosity
3. Self-control
The four verbal actions of :
4. Truthful speech
5. Kind speech
6. Pleasant speech
7. Meaningful speech
The three mental actions of :
8. Sympathetic joy
9. Loving-kindness
10. Right view
22. To have reverence
We can show reverence to the Triple Gem of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha by reflecting on their sublime qualities. Having reverence for elders, monks and spiritual teachers allows for our continued learning and guidance. We can show our reverence by respectful behaviour and careful attendance to them. In addition, showing reverence to the Buddha helps to put us in a good state of mind to learn and practice the Dhamma. Practicing reverence also increases our humility and gratitude.
23. To be humble
Some who have succeeded in making good progress may start to believe that they already know everything and are better than everyone else. If this happens, it becomes difficult to maintain the right attitude and an open mind to learn from others and accept deeper teachings. Here the Buddha reminds us that pride and conceit are two of the biggest obstacles to sustained spiritual development. It is therefore a great blessing to always remain humble.
24. To be content
Different people have different requirements in life and being content does not mean that we should not work hard or strive to improve ourselves. While material things are necessary for survival and comfort, the key is knowing when one has enough. There are many with immense fortunes who are unhappy because they think they still do not have enough wealth. The wise realize that the constant desire to fulfil material cravings is like drinking salt water to satisfy thirst, and this inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, frustration and suffering. To have found our own level of contentment is to have found true peace of mind. Contentment is the greatest wealth.
25. To be grateful
It is said that in this world, there are few who will go out of their way to help another. Even fewer still are those who are grateful for the help given to them. Gratitude is usually accompanied by thanks and appreciation, and also by the desire to return any favours done. All this leads to reciprocal kindness and goodwill, and brings even more blessings in the future too.
26. To hear the Dhamma at the right time
Any time is the right time to read or listen to the Dhamma. However, a good time would be when we are troubled, upset or in doubt. This brings calm, assurance and confidence when we need it the most. Not everyone has the opportunity or the means to be able to hear and learn the Dhamma. We should try to always be in touch with it and not let this great blessing go to waste.
27. To have patience
It is said that patience is the highest virtue, and it is certainly one of the most difficult qualities to attain. We will always be subject to changing conditions and the vagaries of the people around us. Most of these things are beyond our control and if we allow ourselves to be overly affected by them, we will suffer unnecessary stress, unhappiness and anger. We also need to be patient with ourselves when we make mistakes or slip back on the spiritual path, and to keep on trying our best. Patience is a great blessing as it leads to forbearance, forgiveness and tolerance. It allows us to be calm and serene, and to maintain a cool head and a clear mind in any situation.
28. To listen to advice
Many people find it very difficult to listen to advice, much less accept criticism or have their faults and mistakes pointed out to them. However, we cannot acquire deeper knowledge and make true progress if pride and stubbornness stand in our way. Openness, acceptance and humility when corrected are necessary because we are not perfect and always have more to learn from others.
29. To associate with monks and spiritual teachers
Meeting such people gives us the opportunity to learn from them and to derive encouragement and inspiration from their wisdom and serenity. It also reminds us that there is more to this world than just the sensual and material, and shows us that there are many who are already well on the spiritual path.
Being with such people should motivate us to practice the Four Brahmaviharas, also known as the Four Heavenly Abodes because cultivating these noble qualities will bring our minds to a spiritual and heavenly state.
The Four Brahmaviharas
1. Loving-kindness
2. Compassion
3. Sympathetic joy
4. Equanimity
30. To discuss and talk about the Dhamma
To further support the blessing of hearing and learning the Dhamma is to discuss and talk about it. By doing so, we have the blessing of associating with spiritual friends who are on the same path as ourselves. We also have the opportunity to share what we have learned with others and continue to increase our knowledge and understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. In this way, we are frequently in touch with the Dhamma and this is the factor that leads directly to the Supreme Blessings.
31. To practice self-restraint
We have now entered the highest stage where a greater effort is needed for further progress. We should no longer be easily swayed by sensual desires or physical discomforts. We must train ourselves to remain focused on the path. The most basic way is by the strict observance of the Five Precepts, or better still by observing the Eight Precepts. For many practicing Buddhists, it is a tradition to observe the Eight Precepts on new and full moon days, but they can be observed on other days as well.
A good way of training ourselves in self-restraint is to attend meditation retreats where we can practice the Eight Precepts over an extended period of time. This also allows us to lead a simple life of voluntary austerity, providing us the mental and bodily discipline to follow closely to the Eight-Fold Path. Meditation, particularly Vipassana or Insight Meditation, also trains us in the best way of self-restraint, which is constant mindfulness.
The Eight Precepts
1. To abstain from killing any living beings.
2. To abstain from taking what is not given.
3. To abstain from sexual activity.
4. To abstain from lying and false speech.
5. To abstain from the consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
6. To abstain from eating after noon.
7. To abstain from singing, dancing, music, shows, perfume, cosmetics and decorative accessories.
8. To abstain from using high or luxurious seats or beds.
32. To live according to the Noble Eight-Fold Path
At this level of spiritual maturity, this blessing does not simply mean a superficial observance of the Eight-Fold Path. At this level, it means a serious and mindful adherence to each and every factor of the Path. All the previous blessings are the preparations for us to follow this path with determination and diligence. The Eight-Fold Path can be summarized into its three aspects of sila (morality), samadhi (mental development), and panna (wisdom).
The Noble Eight-Fold Path
Morality group
1. Right Speech
To refrain from lying, slander, harsh words and gossip. To cultivate truthful,
peaceful, kind and meaningful speech.
2. Right Action
To abstain from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. To cultivate
harmlessness, honesty and faithfulness.
3. Right Livelihood
To avoid occupations involving killing (of both humans and animals), the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants.
Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided.
Mental development group
4. Right Effort
To apply mental discipline to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising, and to
dispel unwholesome thoughts that have arisen. To develop wholesome thoughts,
and to maintain those wholesome thoughts that have arisen.
5. Right Mindfulness
To be aware of the body, and bodily postures and sensations. To be aware of
the mind and its thoughts, emotions and feelings.
6. Right Concentration
To practice meditation to train the mind to be focused and disciplined in order to cultivate and acquire wisdom.
Wisdom group
7. Right Understanding
To understand and accept the Four Noble Truths.
8. Right Thought
To cultivate thoughts of generosity, loving-kindness and compassion.
33. To understand the Four Noble Truths
By following the Eight-Fold Path, true understanding of the Four Noble Truths will arise. This is different from academic knowledge based on studies, or understanding coming from mere thinking. It is the deep and experiential realization of the truths of reality and existence, arising from the careful practice of morality, mental development and wisdom.
Each aspect of the Eight-Fold Path supports the cultivation and development of the other aspects. For example, observing morality is the foundation necessary for mental development, which leads to wisdom. Wisdom enables us to see the benefits of morality, which we will be more attentive in observing.
A higher standard of morality allows for a greater level of mental development which results in an even deeper penetration of wisdom. And this cycle of spiritual growth continues as an upward spiral towards true understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the eventual attainment of Nibbana.
The Four Noble Truths
1. All beings are subject to Dukkha
Dukkha is usually translated as suffering but it actually encompasses a wide range of negative feelings including stress, dissatisfaction and physical suffering.
Dukkha exists as all beings are subject to illness, separation from loved ones,
not getting their desires, aging and death.
2. Dukkha arises from desire and craving
All beings crave pleasant sensations, and also desire to avoid unpleasant
sensations. These sensations can be physical or psychological, and dukkha
arises when these desires and cravings are not met.
3. Dukkha can be overcome by the elimination of desire and craving
Nibbana is the state of peace where all greed, hatred and delusion, and thereby
dukkha, have been eradicated.
4. There is a way out of dukkha, which is the Noble Eightfold Path
Dukkha can be reduced, weakened and finally eradicated and Nibbana thereby
attained, by following this path as taught by the Buddha.
34. To attain Nibbana
All of us are capable of attaining Nibbana. We may not get enlightened straight away but it is possible for us to attain a level from which Nibbana is assured. Enlightenment is not necessarily realized suddenly or completely. For most people, it will come in gradual stages.
There are four stages leading to enlightenment which are Stream-Entering, Once-Returning, Non-Returning and Full Enlightenment. Anyone who has attained the first three stages can advance to higher stages depending on their practice. To attain full enlightenment, ten fetters or obstructions, must be overcome.
The Ten Fetters
1. Belief that nothing survives the body after death, at one extreme.
Or belief in a permanent unchanging entity (immortal soul) that survives after
death, at the other extreme. *
2. Sceptical or irrational doubts regarding the teachings of the Buddha,
in particular the teachings on kamma and rebirth.
3. Belief that one can be purified through sacrifices, rituals or ceremonies.
4. Attachment to sense pleasures.
5. Anger and ill-will.
6. Desiring existence in a fine-material realm (a heavenly existence).
7. Desiring existence in a formless realm (an even more refined heavenly
existence).
8. Conceit and pride.
9. Restlessness and discontent.
10. Ignorance and delusion.
* This should not be confused with the delusion of self which is completely
overcome only by Arahants when they attain full enlightenment.
Stream-Enterers are those who have at most seven more lifetimes to go before attaining full enlightenment. They have ‘entered the stream’ to Nibbana. During their remaining lives, they will be reborn only in the human or a heavenly realm, and never in a lower realm. Stream-Enterers have eradicated the first three fetters. However, they still have a long way to go as they have yet to weaken the next two fetters (4 & 5) or fully eradicate all the remaining fetters.
A characteristic of Stream-Enterers is that they observe the Five Precepts strictly but easily, and are extremely averse to committing harmful actions of any kind. Their other characteristic is an unshakeable confidence in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the (noble) Sangha. These characteristics may have arisen naturally, possibly carried over from a past life, or developed in the present life through the serious practice of the Eight-Fold Path.
Once-Returners will have only one more life in the human or a heavenly realm before attaining full enlightenment. They have eradicated the first three fetters and weakened, but not yet completely eradicated the next two (4 & 5). Non-Returners will have a final life in a very high and refined heavenly realm and will gain full enlightenment in that realm. They have eradicated the first five fetters. Arahants have successfully eradicated all ten fetters and have become fully enlightened. They have freed themselves from rebirth and attained Nibbana.
All of us should strive hard to become at least Stream-Enterers. It is well within the reach of all sincere Buddhists, whether they are monks, nuns or lay people, who accept and have confidence in the Dhamma and live according to the Eight-Fold Path. With commitment and sincerity, it is very much achievable in the present life. Attaining Nibbana then becomes just a matter of time.
The Fruits of the Path
The following are the Fruits of the Path, or the Supreme Blessings attained by the enlightened. While we may not yet be able to achieve all the following blessings in full, we will be able to at least experience and taste these Fruits of the Path to Nibbana. Having had even a small taste of Nibbana will encourage us to strive on.
35. To be unaffected by worldly conditions
There will always be changes in our lives, some which cause happiness while others bring sadness. It is the nature of existence that change is always taking place and the changes relating to our lives are always fluctuating between extremes. Realizing the ever-changing nature of our existence and practicing equanimity enables one to be unaffected by these worldly conditions.
The Eight Worldly Conditions
Gain and loss
Honour and disgrace
Praise and blame
Pleasure and pain
36. To be free from sorrow
Sorrow, distress, grief and worry are part of our lives and stem from clinging and attachment to the things we desire and love. The enlightened realize the truth of impermanence that whatever arises must also one day cease to exist. By facing this truth directly and understanding it, one will be free from sorrow.
37. To be free from defilements
The defilements of greed, hatred and delusion are the root causes of all suffering and unsatisfactoriness. Even the most subtle aspects of the defilements should be eradicated. These subtle aspects include desire and clinging, aversion and irritation, and disinterest and ignorance. The enlightened are totally free from all of these defilements.
38. To have lasting peace and security
Unlike the ever-changing and unsatisfactory nature of our mundane existence, the peace and happiness of Nibbana is permanent. Even the slightest taste of Nibbana can never be lost. Thus to have attained Nibbana is to have attained the ultimate blessing of perfect peace and absolute security.
In Summary :
For those who abide by this teaching,
They will have established complete safety,
And attained unending happiness wherever they are.
These are the 38 Highest Blessings.
2. To associate with the wise
3. To honour those who are worthy of honour
4. To live in a suitable place
5. To have done good deeds in the past
6. To be on the right path
7. To have a good education
8. To be proficient at work
9. To follow a code of discipline
10. To practice pleasant speech
11. To support our parents
12. To take care of our spouse and children
13. To have occupations which do not cause harm
14. To be charitable
15. To practice virtuous conduct
16. To be of help to relatives and friends
17. To do social services
18. To abstain from evil
19. To have no desire for evil
20. To refrain from intoxicants
21. To be diligent in wholesome practice
22. To have reverence
23. To be humble
24. To be content
25. To be grateful
26. To hear the Dhamma at the right time
27. To have patience
28. To listen to advice
29. To associate with monks and spiritual teachers
30. To discuss and talk about the Dhamma
31. To practice self-restraint
32. To live according to the Noble Eight-Fold Path
33. To understand the Four Noble Truths
34. To attain Nibbana
35. To be unaffected by worldly conditions
36. To be free from sorrow
37. To be free from defilements
38. To have lasting peace and security
1. To avoid the company of fools
Fools are people who are unable to tell right from wrong, and as a result cause harm to others through their actions. They are not concerned with basic morality as they do not care very much about the consequences of their actions. By associating unmindfully with such people, it will be difficult to make any kind of material or spiritual progress as there is always the tendency to behave in a similar manner. Furthermore, there will be hardly any desire or motivation to do good deeds or improve oneself.
However, we must be prepared to lend assistance if it is needed and also help others to improve themselves. Thus we should not totally avoid the fools. What is important is that we remain mindful at all times and never allow ourselves to be adversely influenced by them. This blessing is right at the top of the Buddha’s list and is clearly the single most important blessing for any individual to have, because without this blessing there will be none to follow.
2. To associate with the wise
The wise are those who have acquired the wisdom to tell right from wrong and thus avoid causing harm to others. They are aware that their actions have consequences on not only their present life, but in their future lives too. They discourage wrong-doing and encourage doing good deeds. We should always try to associate with such upright and virtuous people as proper friendships are of absolute importance in our lives, no matter what stage of progress we have reached.
3. To respect those who are worthy of respect
Our parents, elders and teachers are the people we should honour and respect. We can respect them materially or through our conduct. By giving them due respect and honour, we can benefit from their guidance and continue to learn from them.
4. To live in a suitable place
A suitable place has both a material and spiritual meaning. Materially, it means a peaceful place where life and property are reasonably secure. Spiritually, it means a place and time where the teachings of the Buddha are known, and where one is able to learn and practice the teachings in peace. The blessing of living in a suitable place allows for both material and spiritual progress.
5. To have done good deeds in the past
We are continually reaping the results of our past actions. For example, if we had helped many people in the past, it is likely that when we require help ourselves, we will have the aid of some of the people whom we had previously helped. In the same way, if we continue to help others now, it is likely that in the future we will have the assistance of someone we had just helped. Thus, we must continue doing good deeds for the future. It is a twin blessing to have done good deeds in the past, and to be able to continue to do good deeds for the future.
6. To be on the right path
Most people do not even know that they are on the wrong path, much less being aware of the right path that they should take. The wrong path is that of immorality, greed and ignorance. The right path is that of virtue, generosity and wisdom. It is thus a great blessing to know the right path, and to set oneself on this path of material and spiritual progress.
7. To have a good education
This refers to both a general as well as a moral education. A good general education is essential for our material welfare and a good moral education, such as learning the Buddha’s teachings, is important for our spiritual welfare.
8. To be proficient at work
We must be able to support ourselves and our family and in order to do so, we have to be able to earn a decent living. We must have the necessary skills and qualifications and apply them properly to our work. Being able to earn a proper living, and not having to struggle to survive or resort to dishonesty or crime, is essential for both material and spiritual advancement.
9. To follow a code of discipline
Observing the Five Precepts strengthens our resolve and ability to avoid immoral and harmful actions. Following such a code of discipline will keep us from the trouble and difficulties that such negative actions eventually bring.
The Five Precepts
1. To abstain from killing any living beings.
2. To abstain from taking what is not given.
3. To abstain from sexual misconduct.
4. To abstain from lying and false speech.
5. To abstain from the abusive consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
10. To practice pleasant speech
Speech is our main form of interaction with others in society. If we were to always lie, gossip, scold or speak ill of others, we will have many enemies and people will dislike and distrust us. This will hinder greatly the material and spiritual progress we hope to achieve. We should thus always speak what is true, meaningful, pleasant and beneficial for the good of ourselves and others too.
11. To support our parents
Our parents brought us into this world and cared for us from birth. It is only the most heartless and uncaring individuals who will not help their own parents. We must show gratitude by supporting them materially and physically when it is required, and by always returning their love and care. The Buddha said that the only way we can ever fully repay our parents is to share and encourage them to practice the Dhamma.
12. To take care of our spouse and children
Although this seems obvious enough, there are people who do not fulfil this basic duty towards their families. We must support and remain faithful to our spouse, and provide for our children with material needs, parental support and a good education. This would include the crucial duty of teaching them the Dhamma for their own long-lasting peace and happiness. Taking proper care of our family means that we have a household with peace and harmony and is another important factor necessary for spiritual development.
13. To have occupations which do not cause harm
According to the Noble Eightfold Path, we should avoid occupations that involve killing, the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants. Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided. Engaging in any work which causes harm to others will never allow anyone the true peace of mind essential for spiritual development. It is thus a great blessing if we can earn a living by means which are free from unwholesome activities.
14. To be charitable
Greed, craving and excessive attachment are causes of misery and suffering. By practicing charity, we weaken these negative traits and instead cultivate compassion, generosity and selflessness. We can help others materially through our efforts or donations, or spiritually by sharing the Dhamma. Charity should be practiced without regret, discrimination or ulterior motives. Genuine kindness to others brings much love and goodwill for ourselves and also for our family. It is a great blessing to be in the fortunate position of being able to help others. And by doing so we ensure ourselves of more blessings in the future too.
15. To practice virtuous conduct
Instead of just following a code of discipline and avoiding negative actions, we can go on to a higher level of practice. A good way of doing this is to observe the positive aspects of the Five Precepts. This will lead to even greater spiritual progress.
The Five Positive Precepts
1. The practice of harmlessness and compassion.
2. The practice of kindness and generosity.
3. The practice of faithfulness and responsibility.
4. The practice of truthfulness and pleasant speech.
5. The practice of self-control and mindfulness.
16. To be of help to relatives and friends
Beyond providing for our immediate family, we should also help our relatives and friends if they are in need. As we provide assistance to one another when the need arises, we create goodwill among the people around us, and this further supports our spiritual progress.
17. To do social services
An even higher expression of generosity would be to assist the community in general. This can be done by helping to build, or making donations towards the building of schools, hospitals, shelters, roads, etc. which are of benefit to everyone. Even the planting of gardens and trees can improve our environment and the ecology of our planet. Just as important is extending our help to the needy, sick and old. If we have the inclination and the means for any kind of social services, we are indeed blessed as we have already developed much generosity and compassion.
18. To abstain from evil
Evil in the Buddhist context means any act which harms ourselves, others, or both. We should always abstain from all such negative actions.
The Ten Unwholesome Actions
The three bodily actions of :
1. Killing
2. Stealing
3. Sexual misconduct
The four verbal actions of :
4. Lying
5. Slandering
6. Harsh speech
7. Gossip
The three mental actions of :
8. Covetousness
9. Ill-will
10. Wrong view (eg. not accepting kamma and rebirth)
19. To have no desire for evil
When we have become firm in observing the Five Precepts and abstaining from the Ten Unwholesome Actions, we will find that we no longer have the desire to commit any of these harmful actions. We begin to truly realize that as we ourselves do not wish to be victims of such harmful actions, we should thus avoid doing such actions to others. It is a great blessing to naturally shy away from doing any harm to others.
20. To refrain from intoxicants
The Buddha emphasized this point in many teachings, and as one of the Five Precepts, it is the one that 'protects' the other four Precepts. He strongly advised against taking intoxicants because once we come under their influence, we become capable of committing any harmful acts that we would otherwise not have done. It would be a great waste to have come this far in our personal development only to have it all go to ruin because of drinking or drugs. Avoiding intoxicants is another great blessing.
21. To be diligent in wholesome practice
We have understood and now follow what is required for our personal development. The next step is to consolidate our practice and not let it deteriorate because of carelesness, or slip away because of complacency. We should continue to be mindful of keeping up and enhancing our wholesome practices even more. By practicing the Ten Wholesome Actions, we will then find it much easier to go on to the Higher Blessings.
The Ten Wholesome Actions
The three bodily actions of :
1. Compassion
2. Generosity
3. Self-control
The four verbal actions of :
4. Truthful speech
5. Kind speech
6. Pleasant speech
7. Meaningful speech
The three mental actions of :
8. Sympathetic joy
9. Loving-kindness
10. Right view
22. To have reverence
We can show reverence to the Triple Gem of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha by reflecting on their sublime qualities. Having reverence for elders, monks and spiritual teachers allows for our continued learning and guidance. We can show our reverence by respectful behaviour and careful attendance to them. In addition, showing reverence to the Buddha helps to put us in a good state of mind to learn and practice the Dhamma. Practicing reverence also increases our humility and gratitude.
23. To be humble
Some who have succeeded in making good progress may start to believe that they already know everything and are better than everyone else. If this happens, it becomes difficult to maintain the right attitude and an open mind to learn from others and accept deeper teachings. Here the Buddha reminds us that pride and conceit are two of the biggest obstacles to sustained spiritual development. It is therefore a great blessing to always remain humble.
24. To be content
Different people have different requirements in life and being content does not mean that we should not work hard or strive to improve ourselves. While material things are necessary for survival and comfort, the key is knowing when one has enough. There are many with immense fortunes who are unhappy because they think they still do not have enough wealth. The wise realize that the constant desire to fulfil material cravings is like drinking salt water to satisfy thirst, and this inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, frustration and suffering. To have found our own level of contentment is to have found true peace of mind. Contentment is the greatest wealth.
25. To be grateful
It is said that in this world, there are few who will go out of their way to help another. Even fewer still are those who are grateful for the help given to them. Gratitude is usually accompanied by thanks and appreciation, and also by the desire to return any favours done. All this leads to reciprocal kindness and goodwill, and brings even more blessings in the future too.
26. To hear the Dhamma at the right time
Any time is the right time to read or listen to the Dhamma. However, a good time would be when we are troubled, upset or in doubt. This brings calm, assurance and confidence when we need it the most. Not everyone has the opportunity or the means to be able to hear and learn the Dhamma. We should try to always be in touch with it and not let this great blessing go to waste.
27. To have patience
It is said that patience is the highest virtue, and it is certainly one of the most difficult qualities to attain. We will always be subject to changing conditions and the vagaries of the people around us. Most of these things are beyond our control and if we allow ourselves to be overly affected by them, we will suffer unnecessary stress, unhappiness and anger. We also need to be patient with ourselves when we make mistakes or slip back on the spiritual path, and to keep on trying our best. Patience is a great blessing as it leads to forbearance, forgiveness and tolerance. It allows us to be calm and serene, and to maintain a cool head and a clear mind in any situation.
28. To listen to advice
Many people find it very difficult to listen to advice, much less accept criticism or have their faults and mistakes pointed out to them. However, we cannot acquire deeper knowledge and make true progress if pride and stubbornness stand in our way. Openness, acceptance and humility when corrected are necessary because we are not perfect and always have more to learn from others.
29. To associate with monks and spiritual teachers
Meeting such people gives us the opportunity to learn from them and to derive encouragement and inspiration from their wisdom and serenity. It also reminds us that there is more to this world than just the sensual and material, and shows us that there are many who are already well on the spiritual path.
Being with such people should motivate us to practice the Four Brahmaviharas, also known as the Four Heavenly Abodes because cultivating these noble qualities will bring our minds to a spiritual and heavenly state.
The Four Brahmaviharas
1. Loving-kindness
2. Compassion
3. Sympathetic joy
4. Equanimity
30. To discuss and talk about the Dhamma
To further support the blessing of hearing and learning the Dhamma is to discuss and talk about it. By doing so, we have the blessing of associating with spiritual friends who are on the same path as ourselves. We also have the opportunity to share what we have learned with others and continue to increase our knowledge and understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. In this way, we are frequently in touch with the Dhamma and this is the factor that leads directly to the Supreme Blessings.
31. To practice self-restraint
We have now entered the highest stage where a greater effort is needed for further progress. We should no longer be easily swayed by sensual desires or physical discomforts. We must train ourselves to remain focused on the path. The most basic way is by the strict observance of the Five Precepts, or better still by observing the Eight Precepts. For many practicing Buddhists, it is a tradition to observe the Eight Precepts on new and full moon days, but they can be observed on other days as well.
A good way of training ourselves in self-restraint is to attend meditation retreats where we can practice the Eight Precepts over an extended period of time. This also allows us to lead a simple life of voluntary austerity, providing us the mental and bodily discipline to follow closely to the Eight-Fold Path. Meditation, particularly Vipassana or Insight Meditation, also trains us in the best way of self-restraint, which is constant mindfulness.
The Eight Precepts
1. To abstain from killing any living beings.
2. To abstain from taking what is not given.
3. To abstain from sexual activity.
4. To abstain from lying and false speech.
5. To abstain from the consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
6. To abstain from eating after noon.
7. To abstain from singing, dancing, music, shows, perfume, cosmetics and decorative accessories.
8. To abstain from using high or luxurious seats or beds.
32. To live according to the Noble Eight-Fold Path
At this level of spiritual maturity, this blessing does not simply mean a superficial observance of the Eight-Fold Path. At this level, it means a serious and mindful adherence to each and every factor of the Path. All the previous blessings are the preparations for us to follow this path with determination and diligence. The Eight-Fold Path can be summarized into its three aspects of sila (morality), samadhi (mental development), and panna (wisdom).
The Noble Eight-Fold Path
Morality group
1. Right Speech
To refrain from lying, slander, harsh words and gossip. To cultivate truthful,
peaceful, kind and meaningful speech.
2. Right Action
To abstain from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. To cultivate
harmlessness, honesty and faithfulness.
3. Right Livelihood
To avoid occupations involving killing (of both humans and animals), the sale of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants.
Occupations which are unethical, immoral and illegal should also be avoided.
Mental development group
4. Right Effort
To apply mental discipline to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising, and to
dispel unwholesome thoughts that have arisen. To develop wholesome thoughts,
and to maintain those wholesome thoughts that have arisen.
5. Right Mindfulness
To be aware of the body, and bodily postures and sensations. To be aware of
the mind and its thoughts, emotions and feelings.
6. Right Concentration
To practice meditation to train the mind to be focused and disciplined in order to cultivate and acquire wisdom.
Wisdom group
7. Right Understanding
To understand and accept the Four Noble Truths.
8. Right Thought
To cultivate thoughts of generosity, loving-kindness and compassion.
33. To understand the Four Noble Truths
By following the Eight-Fold Path, true understanding of the Four Noble Truths will arise. This is different from academic knowledge based on studies, or understanding coming from mere thinking. It is the deep and experiential realization of the truths of reality and existence, arising from the careful practice of morality, mental development and wisdom.
Each aspect of the Eight-Fold Path supports the cultivation and development of the other aspects. For example, observing morality is the foundation necessary for mental development, which leads to wisdom. Wisdom enables us to see the benefits of morality, which we will be more attentive in observing.
A higher standard of morality allows for a greater level of mental development which results in an even deeper penetration of wisdom. And this cycle of spiritual growth continues as an upward spiral towards true understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the eventual attainment of Nibbana.
The Four Noble Truths
1. All beings are subject to Dukkha
Dukkha is usually translated as suffering but it actually encompasses a wide range of negative feelings including stress, dissatisfaction and physical suffering.
Dukkha exists as all beings are subject to illness, separation from loved ones,
not getting their desires, aging and death.
2. Dukkha arises from desire and craving
All beings crave pleasant sensations, and also desire to avoid unpleasant
sensations. These sensations can be physical or psychological, and dukkha
arises when these desires and cravings are not met.
3. Dukkha can be overcome by the elimination of desire and craving
Nibbana is the state of peace where all greed, hatred and delusion, and thereby
dukkha, have been eradicated.
4. There is a way out of dukkha, which is the Noble Eightfold Path
Dukkha can be reduced, weakened and finally eradicated and Nibbana thereby
attained, by following this path as taught by the Buddha.
34. To attain Nibbana
All of us are capable of attaining Nibbana. We may not get enlightened straight away but it is possible for us to attain a level from which Nibbana is assured. Enlightenment is not necessarily realized suddenly or completely. For most people, it will come in gradual stages.
There are four stages leading to enlightenment which are Stream-Entering, Once-Returning, Non-Returning and Full Enlightenment. Anyone who has attained the first three stages can advance to higher stages depending on their practice. To attain full enlightenment, ten fetters or obstructions, must be overcome.
The Ten Fetters
1. Belief that nothing survives the body after death, at one extreme.
Or belief in a permanent unchanging entity (immortal soul) that survives after
death, at the other extreme. *
2. Sceptical or irrational doubts regarding the teachings of the Buddha,
in particular the teachings on kamma and rebirth.
3. Belief that one can be purified through sacrifices, rituals or ceremonies.
4. Attachment to sense pleasures.
5. Anger and ill-will.
6. Desiring existence in a fine-material realm (a heavenly existence).
7. Desiring existence in a formless realm (an even more refined heavenly
existence).
8. Conceit and pride.
9. Restlessness and discontent.
10. Ignorance and delusion.
* This should not be confused with the delusion of self which is completely
overcome only by Arahants when they attain full enlightenment.
Stream-Enterers are those who have at most seven more lifetimes to go before attaining full enlightenment. They have ‘entered the stream’ to Nibbana. During their remaining lives, they will be reborn only in the human or a heavenly realm, and never in a lower realm. Stream-Enterers have eradicated the first three fetters. However, they still have a long way to go as they have yet to weaken the next two fetters (4 & 5) or fully eradicate all the remaining fetters.
A characteristic of Stream-Enterers is that they observe the Five Precepts strictly but easily, and are extremely averse to committing harmful actions of any kind. Their other characteristic is an unshakeable confidence in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the (noble) Sangha. These characteristics may have arisen naturally, possibly carried over from a past life, or developed in the present life through the serious practice of the Eight-Fold Path.
Once-Returners will have only one more life in the human or a heavenly realm before attaining full enlightenment. They have eradicated the first three fetters and weakened, but not yet completely eradicated the next two (4 & 5). Non-Returners will have a final life in a very high and refined heavenly realm and will gain full enlightenment in that realm. They have eradicated the first five fetters. Arahants have successfully eradicated all ten fetters and have become fully enlightened. They have freed themselves from rebirth and attained Nibbana.
All of us should strive hard to become at least Stream-Enterers. It is well within the reach of all sincere Buddhists, whether they are monks, nuns or lay people, who accept and have confidence in the Dhamma and live according to the Eight-Fold Path. With commitment and sincerity, it is very much achievable in the present life. Attaining Nibbana then becomes just a matter of time.
The Fruits of the Path
The following are the Fruits of the Path, or the Supreme Blessings attained by the enlightened. While we may not yet be able to achieve all the following blessings in full, we will be able to at least experience and taste these Fruits of the Path to Nibbana. Having had even a small taste of Nibbana will encourage us to strive on.
35. To be unaffected by worldly conditions
There will always be changes in our lives, some which cause happiness while others bring sadness. It is the nature of existence that change is always taking place and the changes relating to our lives are always fluctuating between extremes. Realizing the ever-changing nature of our existence and practicing equanimity enables one to be unaffected by these worldly conditions.
The Eight Worldly Conditions
Gain and loss
Honour and disgrace
Praise and blame
Pleasure and pain
36. To be free from sorrow
Sorrow, distress, grief and worry are part of our lives and stem from clinging and attachment to the things we desire and love. The enlightened realize the truth of impermanence that whatever arises must also one day cease to exist. By facing this truth directly and understanding it, one will be free from sorrow.
37. To be free from defilements
The defilements of greed, hatred and delusion are the root causes of all suffering and unsatisfactoriness. Even the most subtle aspects of the defilements should be eradicated. These subtle aspects include desire and clinging, aversion and irritation, and disinterest and ignorance. The enlightened are totally free from all of these defilements.
38. To have lasting peace and security
Unlike the ever-changing and unsatisfactory nature of our mundane existence, the peace and happiness of Nibbana is permanent. Even the slightest taste of Nibbana can never be lost. Thus to have attained Nibbana is to have attained the ultimate blessing of perfect peace and absolute security.
In Summary :
For those who abide by this teaching,
They will have established complete safety,
And attained unending happiness wherever they are.
These are the 38 Highest Blessings.
What are False Friends and True Friends ?
False friends
Those who take
They take whatever they can get
They give little but ask for much
They do what is required only out of obligation
They are friends for their own advantage
Those who pay lip-service
They claim to have been good friends in the past
They promise to be good friends in the future
They try to gain favour with kind but empty words
When called upon, they say they are unable to help
Those who flatter
They approve of wrong-doing
They approve or disapprove of doing right, whichever will benefit them
They speak well of you in your presence
They speak ill of you to others when you are not around
Those who bring ruin
They are companions for indulging in drinking
They are companions for being out late at night for no good reason
They are companions for excessively frequenting places of entertainment
They are companions for indulging in gambling
In summary :
The friends who take
The friends who pay lip-service
The friends who flatter
The friends who brings ruin.
The wise will know that these four
Are not friends but are enemies;
And should be avoided
As one avoids a dangerous path.
True friends
Those who are helpmates
They protect you when you are vulnerable
They protect your possessions when you are vulnerable
They are there when you are troubled
They provide generously when there is a need
Those who remain the same in good times and in bad
They trust you with their secrets
They can be trusted with your secrets
They do not abandon you in times of trouble
They may even give their life for you
Those who give good counsel
They restrain you from doing wrong
They encourage you to do what is right
They keep you informed of what you should know
They show the right way and are companions for spiritual practice
Those who are compassionate
They sympathize in your misfortune
They rejoice in your good fortune
They restrain others from speaking ill of you
They commend those who speak well of you
In summary :
The friends who help
The friends who stay in good times and in bad
The friends who give good counsel
The friends who are compassionate.
The wise will know that these four
are truly friends;
And treasure them
As a mother does her own child.
Those who take
They take whatever they can get
They give little but ask for much
They do what is required only out of obligation
They are friends for their own advantage
Those who pay lip-service
They claim to have been good friends in the past
They promise to be good friends in the future
They try to gain favour with kind but empty words
When called upon, they say they are unable to help
Those who flatter
They approve of wrong-doing
They approve or disapprove of doing right, whichever will benefit them
They speak well of you in your presence
They speak ill of you to others when you are not around
Those who bring ruin
They are companions for indulging in drinking
They are companions for being out late at night for no good reason
They are companions for excessively frequenting places of entertainment
They are companions for indulging in gambling
In summary :
The friends who take
The friends who pay lip-service
The friends who flatter
The friends who brings ruin.
The wise will know that these four
Are not friends but are enemies;
And should be avoided
As one avoids a dangerous path.
True friends
Those who are helpmates
They protect you when you are vulnerable
They protect your possessions when you are vulnerable
They are there when you are troubled
They provide generously when there is a need
Those who remain the same in good times and in bad
They trust you with their secrets
They can be trusted with your secrets
They do not abandon you in times of trouble
They may even give their life for you
Those who give good counsel
They restrain you from doing wrong
They encourage you to do what is right
They keep you informed of what you should know
They show the right way and are companions for spiritual practice
Those who are compassionate
They sympathize in your misfortune
They rejoice in your good fortune
They restrain others from speaking ill of you
They commend those who speak well of you
In summary :
The friends who help
The friends who stay in good times and in bad
The friends who give good counsel
The friends who are compassionate.
The wise will know that these four
are truly friends;
And treasure them
As a mother does her own child.
Friday, December 25, 2009
What basically is kamma?
Kamma literally means "intentional action" ,and this refers to the Buddhist belief in the principle of Cause and Effect. We believe that every intentional act will give rise to a corresponding result, in either the present life or in a future one.
The result of kamma should thus not be seen as rewards or punishments for acts done, but simply the results or outcome of any such intentional acts. Positive actions will eventually result in positive consequences, and negative actions will eventually result in negative consequences.
Using an ordinary common-sense example of Cause and Effect take a person who smokes,drinks and eats excessively without doing any regular exercise. As a result of his actions, this person will have a high likelihood of having a stroke or heart disease and ultimately go through much suffering. On the other hand, a person who watches his diet and takes good care of his body will usually be able to have a healthy life, even in old age.
Therefore, a person who has done much good and thus accumulated much positive kamma will likely enjoy a happy life and gravitate towards a Human,or even a Heavenly realm of existence in the next rebirth. Conversely, someone who has done much bad deeds and accumulated much negative kamma may have a life plagued with difficulties, and then also reborn in a Lower realm of existence.
Kamma can also be viewed as seeds. You have the choice of the seeds you widh to grow. Therefore sow as many good seeds as you possibly can!
The result of kamma should thus not be seen as rewards or punishments for acts done, but simply the results or outcome of any such intentional acts. Positive actions will eventually result in positive consequences, and negative actions will eventually result in negative consequences.
Using an ordinary common-sense example of Cause and Effect take a person who smokes,drinks and eats excessively without doing any regular exercise. As a result of his actions, this person will have a high likelihood of having a stroke or heart disease and ultimately go through much suffering. On the other hand, a person who watches his diet and takes good care of his body will usually be able to have a healthy life, even in old age.
Therefore, a person who has done much good and thus accumulated much positive kamma will likely enjoy a happy life and gravitate towards a Human,or even a Heavenly realm of existence in the next rebirth. Conversely, someone who has done much bad deeds and accumulated much negative kamma may have a life plagued with difficulties, and then also reborn in a Lower realm of existence.
Kamma can also be viewed as seeds. You have the choice of the seeds you widh to grow. Therefore sow as many good seeds as you possibly can!
What is Bhavana?
Bhavana means the practice of " Mind Cultivation" or simply meditation .Meditation can be said to purify the mind by making it easier to develop Generosity and Compassion,and then to finally acquire Wisdom.
Buddhist meditation is usually classified into two types- Vipassana or insight meditation, and Samatha or Concentration meditation. There are many forms of Samatha meditation ,and Metta or Loving-Kindness meditation is one of its more widely practiced forms. All these tyoes of meditation have their benefits.
However, it is usually recognized that it is through the practice of Vipassana or insight meditation that we can come to fully know ourselves. And that through this we will be able to better realize and understand the Buddha's Teachings and to see things as they turely are.
Meditation can be said to be the highest form of Buddhist practise as the Buddhist himself attained Enlightenment through meditation.
You do not need long meditation sessions to begin with. Even a short 10 to 20 minutes every day or every other day will do wonders.
Buddhist meditation is usually classified into two types- Vipassana or insight meditation, and Samatha or Concentration meditation. There are many forms of Samatha meditation ,and Metta or Loving-Kindness meditation is one of its more widely practiced forms. All these tyoes of meditation have their benefits.
However, it is usually recognized that it is through the practice of Vipassana or insight meditation that we can come to fully know ourselves. And that through this we will be able to better realize and understand the Buddha's Teachings and to see things as they turely are.
Meditation can be said to be the highest form of Buddhist practise as the Buddhist himself attained Enlightenment through meditation.
You do not need long meditation sessions to begin with. Even a short 10 to 20 minutes every day or every other day will do wonders.
What is Sila?
This means "Morality' and the Buddha advised us to observe the Five Precepts in the cultivation of Sila:
1. Abstain from killing any living beings.
2. Abstain from taking what is not given.
3. Abstain from sexual misconduct
4. Abstain from lying and flase speech
5. Abstain from the abusive consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
These Percepts are not commandment but are rules that Buddhists take upon thenselves to observe. They are observed not because of fear of punishment but because we realize that such actions harm others as well as ourselves.
For example,as we ourselves do not wish to be killed or harmed, we realize that all other beings also do not wish to be killed or harmed. Likewise as we do not wish to be victims of theft, adultery, lies and slander, we ourselves should avoid doing such acts to others.
The Buddha also strongly advocated avoiding intoxicants and drugs. This is because once you have come under the influence odf alcohol or illicit drugs, you are capable of committing any acts that you would not have done otherwise.
Should you break the Percepts, the Buddhist way is to be fully aware that you have done so, try your best to make amends, and then resolve to try harder from then on.
Morality is the foundation which everything else rests upon. It thus night be good to memorize the Five Percepts so that you can be mindful of them at all times.
And once the observing of the Five Percepts becomes an instinctive part of your behaviour, developing its positive aspects will come easily and naturally:
1. The practice of Harmlessness and Compassion
2. The practice of Kindness and Generosity
3. The practise of Faithfulness and Responsibility
4. The practise of Truthfulnessand Pleasant Speech
5. The practise of Self-control and Mindfulness.
1. Abstain from killing any living beings.
2. Abstain from taking what is not given.
3. Abstain from sexual misconduct
4. Abstain from lying and flase speech
5. Abstain from the abusive consumption of intoxicants and drugs.
These Percepts are not commandment but are rules that Buddhists take upon thenselves to observe. They are observed not because of fear of punishment but because we realize that such actions harm others as well as ourselves.
For example,as we ourselves do not wish to be killed or harmed, we realize that all other beings also do not wish to be killed or harmed. Likewise as we do not wish to be victims of theft, adultery, lies and slander, we ourselves should avoid doing such acts to others.
The Buddha also strongly advocated avoiding intoxicants and drugs. This is because once you have come under the influence odf alcohol or illicit drugs, you are capable of committing any acts that you would not have done otherwise.
Should you break the Percepts, the Buddhist way is to be fully aware that you have done so, try your best to make amends, and then resolve to try harder from then on.
Morality is the foundation which everything else rests upon. It thus night be good to memorize the Five Percepts so that you can be mindful of them at all times.
And once the observing of the Five Percepts becomes an instinctive part of your behaviour, developing its positive aspects will come easily and naturally:
1. The practice of Harmlessness and Compassion
2. The practice of Kindness and Generosity
3. The practise of Faithfulness and Responsibility
4. The practise of Truthfulnessand Pleasant Speech
5. The practise of Self-control and Mindfulness.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
What is Dana (Donation) ?
This simply means "giving" or charity or helping others. This can be practiced in many different ways. You can do so through speech by using kind and encouraging words with others. Even giving something as simple as a smile can help another if it cheers them up and brithens their day.
You can always lend a hand to anyone who needs help. You can volunteer your efforts or your resources to the less fortunate. You can also share the Buddha's Teaching to anyone who is interested in them. It is the greatest gift of all.
However, try to do all this without regret, discrimination or ulterior motives. Prictise Dana with kindness, compassion and empathy.
You can always lend a hand to anyone who needs help. You can volunteer your efforts or your resources to the less fortunate. You can also share the Buddha's Teaching to anyone who is interested in them. It is the greatest gift of all.
However, try to do all this without regret, discrimination or ulterior motives. Prictise Dana with kindness, compassion and empathy.
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